The Industrial Arts in Spain

SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS. SPANISH INDUSTRIAL ARTS.
This Volume, forming one of the Series of Art Handbooks issued under the authority of the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education, has been prepared by Señor Juan F. Riaño, of Madrid, whose Catalogue of Art Objects of Spanish production in the South Kensington Museum, issued in 1872, has proved of great value and interest.
April, 1879.
BY JUAN F. RIAÑO. WITH NUMEROUS WOODCUTS
Published for the Committee of Council on Education, BY CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED, LONDON. 1890.
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, LONDON AND BUNGAY.
The Department of Science and Art is indebted to Mr. John Murray for the use of the Woodcuts Nos. 19, 20, 30, and 31. No. 50 is from a Spanish Woodcut.
THE Greek and Latin authors who have described the Spanish Peninsula, state that the quantity of gold and silver ore found there was very great, and that hence the district became an important centre of commercial activity of Phœnicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans. Some authors have gone so far as to assert that the Phœnicians made the anchors of their ships of gold and silver, and that the Carthaginians were astonished to find in Andalusia, that the mangers and vases for holding wine and oil were made of the same materials. These references have been constantly mentioned in ancient Spanish authors. Ambrosio de Morales, in his Antiguedades de España, Alcala 1577, enters into every detail on this subject.
I have seen a specimen of this period, a bowl of an earlier and different style to Roman silversmiths' work, which belongs to a collector in the province of Cordova. This bowl is of a conical shape: it is perfectly plain, and has an inscription in Iberian characters engraved on one of its sides: there are signs outside and at the bottom which indicate that this bowl was made on the wheel. Velazquez in his Ensayo sobre las letras desconocidas, Madrid, 1752, describes a silver bowl of a similar kind, which was found in Andalusia in 1618 full of Iberian coins: this bowl weighed ten ounces. Several ornaments, chiefly consisting of necklaces and earrings, may be studied at the Academy of History, and private collections, in Madrid; they have been classified by antiquarians as belonging to this uncertain period, and are similar in style to others which have been frequently found in England and the north of Europe. The most interesting objects of this kind which I have seen in Spain, are gold ornaments proceeding from Galicia; they were found there by Sr. Villaamil, who gave a description of them in the Museo Español de Antiguedades, vol. iii. p. 545.