POTTERY OF SEVILLE, PUENTE DEL ARZOBISPO, TALAVERA DE LA REINA, TOLEDO, AND BARCELONA; POROUS WARE; PORCELAIN OF ALCORA AND THE ROYAL FACTORY OF THE BUEN RETIRO.

We have seen that Seville was an early and important centre of the potter's craft in Spain. Her potteries were celebrated even with the Romans, and probably have at no moment been inactive. Fifty, established in the suburb of Triana, were mentioned in the sixteenth century by Pedro de Medina, and documents which tell of many more have recently been discovered by Gestoso. The excellence of the Seville tiles has been described in a preceding section of this chapter. Their production still continues upon a large scale; and the ware of the Cartuja factory, which reached the zenith of its fame towards the end of the eighteenth century, is considered by Jacquemart and other authorities to rival with the Italian wares of Savona.

Pottery made in other parts of the Peninsula—particularly that of Talavera de la Reina—is known to have been imitated by the Seville potters with embarrassing perfection. In the case of the so-called “loza de Puente del Arzobispo,” it is the Seville ware itself which seems to have been imitated. Puente del Arzobispo is a small village near Toledo. Mendez wrote of it in the seventeenth century:—“Fine pottery is manufactured in about eight kilns, which produce more than 40,000 ducats yearly.” “In 1755,” says Riaño, “thirteen pottery kilns existed at this place; they still worked in 1791, but their productions were very inferior in artistic merit.”

LXVII
HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE

Not many years ago the name of Puente del Arzobispo was connected by Baron Davillier with certain polychrome non-lustred plates and other vessels which are greatly esteemed for their rarity, and of which a few specimens exist in the South Kensington and other museums, as well as in one or two private collections, such as that of Señor Osma.

Gestoso says that the usual diameter of these plates is either twenty-three centimetres or forty-two centimetres. “Their decoration, betraying at a glance the Saracenic influence, consists of leaves and flowers, together with animals of a more or less fantastic character: lions, rabbits, and birds. In other specimens the centre is occupied by a heart, fleurs-de-lis, or other fancy devices, or yet, in some few cases, with the head of a man or woman. These central designs are surrounded with leaves and flowers. The draughtsmanship upon these plates is of the rudest, and the process of their colouring was as follows. The figures were drawn upon the unfired surface in manganese ink mixed with a greasy substance; and after this the aqueous enamel or glaze was allowed to drop from a hogshair brush into the spaces which the black had outlined.”

This will be recognized as the cuerda seca process, so extensively employed in making Seville tiles. Nevertheless, judging by certain marks upon this pottery, Baron Davillier declared it to proceed from Puente del Arzobispo. The marks in question consist in one or two examples of what appears to be the letters A.P. or P.A.[91] Davillier, however, affirmed that he had seen a plate fully inscribed as follows:—

The existence of this plate is now discredited; at least, no trace of it can be discovered at this day. Upon the other hand, Gestoso points to various objects manufactured by the cuerda seca method, and which undoubtedly proceed from Seville. Among them are three shields, one of which, containing the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella, is of exceptional interest, for it is accompanied by an inscribed slab, evidently coeval with the shield itself, recording it to have been made in the year 1503, and by Jerónimo Suarez. This shield and slab were removed from a courtyard of the old Alhóndiga to Seville Museum, where they now remain. Of the two other shields, one belongs to Señor Osma, and the second, which is still at Seville, adorns the tomb of Don León Enriquez in the church of Santa Paula; and since it is unquestionable that all these cuerda seca shields, as well as quantities of cuerda seca tiles, were made at Seville, Gestoso prudently suggests that we should designate as “cuerda seca ware” that pottery which has hitherto passed as specially belonging to Puente del Arzobispo. In fact, towards the end of the fifteenth century this pottery is found extending northward from Seville to Toledo, and Señor Osma assures me that Toledo specimens are of a somewhat later manufacture than those which were produced at Seville. One of the rarest and most interesting cuerda seca plates in this gentleman's collection is reproduced herewith (lxviii.). No other plate of similar pattern is known to exist. Its date may be placed between 1480 and 1495, and it gives a curious illustration of the masculine headdress and headwear in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

The pottery of Talavera de la Reina was at one time much esteemed. The earliest mention of it, says Riaño, occurs in 1560, in a manuscript history of this town, while another notice, dated 1576, says that here was produced “fine white glazed earthenware and other pottery, which supplied the country, part of Portugal, and India.” More explicit are the observations of Father Alonso de Ajofrín, who wrote, in 1651, a history of Talavera. He says that “her pottery is as good as that of Pisa, while quantities of azulejos are made here to adorn the front of altars, churches, gardens, alcoves, saloons, and bowers, and large and small specimens of every kind. Two hundred workmen work at eight separate kilns. Four other kilns produce the commoner kinds of ware. Red porous clay vessels and drinking-cups are baked in two other kilns in a thousand shapes to imitate birds and other creatures; also brinquiños for the use of ladies, so deliciously flavoured that after drinking the water they contained, they eat the cup in which it was brought them.”

LXVIII
DISH
(Andalusian non-lustred ware in the Cuerda seca style. A.D. 1480-1495. Osma Collection)

The following most interesting notice relating to this town is also quoted by Riaño: “The earthenware pottery made here has reached a great perfection; it is formed of white and red clay. Vases, cups, bucaros and brinquiños are made of different kinds, dishes and table centres, and imitations of snails, owls, dogs, and every kind of fruits, olives, and almonds. These objects are painted with great perfection, and the imitations of porcelain brought from the Portuguese Indies are most excellent. Everyone is surprised that in so small a town such excellent things should be made. The varnish used for the white pottery is made with tin and sand, and is now found to be more acceptable than coloured earthenware; so much so, that persons of importance who pass by this town, although they have in their houses dinner-services of silver, buy earthenware made at Talavera, on account of its excellence. The sand which was used to make the white varnish was brought from Hita, and is now found at Mejorada, near Talavera. This sand is as fine and soft as silk.

“The red pottery made at Talavera is much to be commended, for besides the great variety of objects, and the different medals which they place upon them, they have invented some small brinquiños of so small and delicate a kind, that the ladies wear them. Rosaries are also made of the same material. A certain scent is added in the manufacture of this pottery which excites the appetite and taste of the women, who eat the pottery so frequently that it gives great trouble to their confessors to check this custom.”

LXIX
AN ALFARERÍA OR POTTER'S YARD
(Granada)

This porous pottery for keeping water cool had been imported from America, and was chiefly made in Andalusia, Portugal, and Extremadura. It is still produced at Andujar and elsewhere. Nearly all travellers in Spain describe it, and insist upon the curious circumstance that it was eaten by the Spanish women. “I have mentioned elsewhere,” wrote Countess d'Aulnoy, “the longing many women feel to chew this clay, which often obstructs their bodies internally. Their stomachs swell, and grow as hard as stone, while their skin turns yellow as a quince. I also felt a curiosity to taste this ware, that is so highly yet so undeservedly esteemed; but I would devour a grindstone rather than put it in my mouth again. Nevertheless, if one wants to be agreeable to the Spanish ladies, one has to present them with some bucaros, which they themselves call barros, and which, as many deem, possess such numerous and admirable qualities, since they claim for the clay that it cures sickness, and that a drinking vessel made of it betrays the presence of a poison. I possess one which spoils the taste of wine, but greatly improves water. This liquid seems to boil and tremble when it is thrown into the cup in question; but after a little while the vessel empties—so porous is the clay of which it is composed—and then it has a fragrant odour.”

Similar accounts are given by travellers of a later time. “I wish,” wrote Swinburne, “I could contrive a method of carrying you some of the fine earthen jars, called buxaros, which are made in Andalusia. They are remarkably convenient for water-drinkers, as they are light, smooth, and handy; being not more than half-baked, they are very porous, and the outside is kept moist by the water's filtering through; though placed in the sun, the water in the pots remains as cold as ice. The most disagreeable circumstance attending them is, that they emit a smell of earth refreshed by a sudden shower after a long drought.”[92]

Laborde, who wrote a few years later, seems to have copied some of his information from Bowles. “The Murcians,” he said, “use in their houses little jars called Bucaros, the same as those which in some parts of Andalusia are called Alcarrazas.[93] They have handles open at the top, are smaller at the bottom than above, and bulge in the middle; they are slight, porous, smooth, and half-baked; they are made of a peculiar kind of clay. When water is put into them, they emit a smell like that sent up by the earth after a shower of rain in summer. The water makes its way very slowly through the pores, and keeps them constantly moist on the outside; they are used to cool water for drinking. The windows and balconies of all the houses have large iron rings, with a flat surface, on which they are placed at night, and the water, oozing incessantly, becomes very cool.[94] In Andalusia some of these jars are white, and others red; in Murcia they have only white ones. They appear to be in every respect of the same nature as the evaporating vases of Africa, Egypt, Syria, and India, of which so much has been said by travellers, and on which the learned have made so many dissertations.”

The same vessels are noticed by Ford in his description of a Spanish posada. “Near the staircase downstairs, and always in a visible place, is a gibbous jar, tinaja, of the ancient classical amphora shape, filled with fresh water; and by it is a tin or copper utensil to take water out with, and often a row of small pipkins, made of a red porous clay,[95] which are kept ready filled with water, on, or rather in, a shelf fixed to the wall, and called la tallada, el taller. These pots, alcarrazas, from the constant evaporation, keep the water extremely cool. They are of various shapes, many, especially in Valencia and Andalusia, being of the unchanged identical form of those similar clay drinking-vessels discovered at Pompeii. They are the precise trulla. Martial speaks both of the colour and the material of those made at Saguntum, where they still are prepared in great quantities; they are not unlike the ckool'lehs of Egypt, which are made of the same material and for the same purposes, and represent the ancient Canobic κστατικα. They are seldom destined to be placed on the table; their bottoms being pointed and conical, they could not stand upright. This singular form was given to the vasa futilia, or cups used at the sacrifices of Vesta, which would have been defiled had they touched the ground. As soon, therefore, as they are drunk off, they are refilled and replaced in their holes on the shelf, as is done with decanters in our butlers' pantries.”[96]

I am only aware of one author who derides the statement that this porous clay was eaten by the Spanish women. According to Bowles, who certainly describes and comments on it with intelligence and scholarship, the neighbourhood of Andujar contains “large quantities of the white argil of which are made the jars or alcarrazas which serve in many parts of Spain for cooling water in the summer-time. In other parts of Andalusia is found a red variety of this clay, employed in making the vessels known as búcaros, which serve to freshen the water as well as for drinking it out of—a thing the Spanish ladies love greatly. Both the white alcarrazas and the búcaros as red as the blood of a bull are thin, porous, smooth, and half-baked. When filled with water they emit a pleasant smell like that of dry earth rained upon in summer, and as the water filters through the outer surface, remain continually damp.” The same writer adds that at that time (1752) the búcaros proceeding from the Indies were of finer workmanship, and had a more agreeable smell than those of Spanish manufacture. “In the Encyclopædia,” he continues, “and in the Dictionary of Natural History, we read that Spanish ladies are for ever chewing búcaro, and that the hardest penance their confessors can inflict upon them is to deprive them for a single day of this enjoyment.” Bowles, however, quotes these observations in a scornful tone, and deprecates the habit of “believing writers who without inquiring into things, concoct and publish novels to divert the populace and rid them of their money.”

Turning our attention once again to the finer kinds of Talavera ware, Gestoso adduces proofs that this as well as Chinese porcelain was faultlessly and freely imitated in the potteries of Seville. Here, therefore, is a source of fresh confusion; and probably a great proportion of the polychrome ware which goes by the name of Talaveran is really of Sevillian origin. It is further known that at one period, which seems to begin with the second half of the sixteenth century, potters who were natives of Talavera were hired to work in Seville.

LXX
TALAVERA VASE

It has not been ascertained when Talavera herself grew celebrated for this industry. García Llansó supposes that at first, before it felt the influence of Italy and France, her pottery was partly Mudejar, and vestiges of oriental art survive in fairly late examples. The characteristic colour-scheme was either blue on white, or else the decoration is more variegated. Riaño says:—“Although we find by the remarks we have quoted from contemporary authors that earthenware of every description was made at Talavera, the specimens which are more generally met with may be divided into two groups, which are painted on a white ground, either in blue, or in colours, in the manner of Italian maiolica. The most important examples which have reached us consist of bowls of different sizes, dishes, vases (Plate [lxx].), tinajas, holy-water vessels, medicine jars, and wall decoration. Blue oriental china was imitated to a vast extent: the colouring was successful, but the design was an imitation of the baroque school of the time, and the figures, landscapes, and decoration follow the bad taste so general in Spain in the eighteenth century. The imitations of Italian maiolica are effective. The colours most commonly used are manganese, orange, blue, and green.”

Talavera maintained her reputation for pottery till nearly the middle of the eighteenth century, supporting more than six hundred workmen employed in eight large potteries.[97] From then onwards the trade declined, and by the close of the same century was practically dead, owing, Larruga tells us, to the constantly increasing cost of prime materials. Nevertheless, the Crown made efforts to revive the craft, and met with some success till 1777, in which year four establishments (locally known as barrerías) for making common pottery were opened in the same town, and speedily crushed their rivals. “The potteries of Talavera,” wrote Laborde soon after this, “were greatly celebrated for many years, and supplied a lucrative and important branch of commerce. They are evidently on the decline. The manufactories are reduced to seven or eight. These productions no longer exhibit the same delicacy of execution. Their designs are also lamentably defective. The material employed in them is a certain earth which is found near Calera, three leagues from Talavera.”

The older Talavera ware, decorated, as a rule, with horses, birds, hunting-scenes, or coats of arms, is seldom met with nowadays. Although it is not particularly choice, the drawing is firm, and the colouring vigorous and agreeable.

I have said that pottery continued to be made in Aragon, at Muel, Villafeliche, and other places. In course of time these local industries were also suffered to decay. Laborde says that early in the nineteenth century the Villafeliche factory employed thirty-eight workmen. “The ware is of a very inferior sort. This article might be carried to a greater extent. In several parts of the province, earth is found of an excellent quality for earthenware, particularly in Zaragoza and in Tauste; the latter affords the best, which is very fine, and of three colours, and would answer for the making of porcelain.”

In the eighteenth century Toledo, upon the initiative of Don Ignacio Velasco, produced good imitations of Genoese ware, while other kinds of pottery were made at Teruel, Valladolid, Jaen, Zamora, Segovia, Puente del Arzobispo, and in the Balearic Islands. Another region which continued to be a most important centre of the potter's craft was Cataluña, where it had always been encouraged by this thrifty and art-loving people. As early as the year 1257 two potters occupied a place upon the municipal council of Barcelona, while the potters' guild was strictly regulated from the beginning of the fourteenth century.[98] At the same time two whole streets in the centre of the town, as well as others in the suburbs, were occupied by potters. The ancient names of these streets are yet retained in the Calles Escudillers, Escudillers Blancs (white varnished pottery), Obradors (where many of the potteries were situated), and Tallers (i.e. the potteries for producing common ware).

The pottery of Cataluña generally was largely exported to Sicily, Alexandria, and other parts. Among the places in this region which produced it were Tarragona, Tortosa, and Villafranca. In 1528 the municipal council of the capital herself forbade, as a protective measure, the introduction into Barcelona of local pottery made at Malgrat, La Selva, and other towns and villages of this neighbourhood. In 1546 the Portuguese Barreyros declared in his work Chorografía de algunos lugares that the Barcelona ware surpassed all other classes made in Spain, including the Valencian. She continued to produce good pottery all through the sixteenth century, and excellent common ware until considerably later.[99]

About the beginning of the eighteenth century Laborde mentioned as working centres of this craft “manufactories of delf-ware at Avilés, Gijón, Oviedo, Nava, and Cangas de Onis, in the Asturias; at Segovia in Old Castile; at Puente del Arzobispo and Talavera de la Reina in New Castile; at Seville in the kingdom of that name; at Villafeliche in Aragon; at Onda, Alcora, and Manises, in the kingdom of Valencia; at San Andero in Biscay; and at Tortosa in Cataluña…. The most important of these potteries is the one at Alcora, the delf of which is tolerably fine, though not of the first quality. No china is made, except at Alcora and Madrid: that of the former place is very common, and inconsiderable as to quantity. The china manufactured at Madrid is beautiful, and without exaggeration may be considered as equalling that of Sèvres. It is a royal pottery; but it is impossible to give any description of its state, because admission to the interior of the manufactory is strictly prohibited.”

Ricord states in his pamphlet relative to Valencian industries that in 1791 factories of high-class pottery were working in the kingdom of Valencia, at Onda, Alcora, Ribesalves, Manises, Eslida, and Bechí; and of common ware at San Felipe, Morella, Manises, Murviedro, Alicante, Moncada, Orihuela, Segorbe, and other towns and villages of this locality. In all, there were throughout the province eighty-seven of these latter potteries, besides two hundred and twenty tileries, and four factories of artistic tiles or azulejos established at Valencia. The yearly output of these azulejerias was 150,000 tiles, 20,000 of which were exported to Andalusia and Castile.

Although the pottery of Alcora only achieved distinction at a later age, this craft had long been practised in the neighbourhood. This circumstance induced the Count of Aranda to found here, in 1726, a large factory for producing costly and artistic ware. Riaño obtained permission to examine the archives of the family of Aranda, with their mass of documents relating to this enterprise. His notice of Alcora ware is therefore most complete and valuable, and has been copied, frequently without acknowledgment, by almost every writer on the subject.

It appears from these archives that the cost of building and opening the factory of Alcora amounted to about £10,000. The works were placed beneath the supervision of Don Joaquín Joseph de Sayas, at the same time that a Frenchman named Ollery was engaged at a good salary and brought from Moustiers to act as principal draughtsman. A couple of years later Count Aranda paid Ollery the high compliment of saying that “the fine and numerous models which he has designed, have contributed to make my manufacture the first in Spain.” He seems to have retired in 1737, when the Count rewarded him with a yearly pension of five hundred francs besides the amount of his salary, “for his especial zeal in the improvement of the manufactory, and his great skill in directing the construction of every kind of work.” Riaño adds that from this date until the manufacture of porcelain in 1764, only Spanish artists worked at Alcora.

The products of this factory continued to improve, and reached, in course of time, a yearly total of about three hundred thousand objects. The ordinances, which are dated between 1732 and 1733, tell us that “in these works of ours no pottery should be made except the very finest, similar to the Chinese, and of as fine an earth. The models and wheels should be perfect, the drawing first-rate, the varnish and colours excellent, and the pottery light and of the highest quality, for it is our express wish that the best pottery should only be distinguished from that of an inferior kind by the greater or less amount of painting which covers it.”

Not less interesting are certain communications, copied by Riaño, which passed in 1746 between the Spanish Tribunal of Commerce and the Count of Aranda, in which it is stated that “the perfection of the earthenware of Alcora consists in the excellent models which have been made by competent foreign artists, as well as in the quality of the earth and the recipes brought at great cost from abroad.” We learn from the same document that “from the earliest period of the manufacture, pyramids with figures of children, holding garlands of flowers and baskets of fruits on their heads, were made with great perfection; also brackets, centre and three-cornered tables, large objects, some as large as five feet high, to be placed upon them, chandeliers, cornucopias, statues of different kinds, and animals of different sorts and sizes. The entire ornamentation of a room has also been made here; the work is so perfect that nothing in Spain, France, Italy, or Holland could equal it in merit.”

It is not necessary to follow in close detail all the modifications and vicissitudes (extending over quite a hundred years) which affected the Alcora factory. I therefore only take some general notices from Riaño. In 1750 Count Aranda transferred the works to a private company, which remained in possession of them until 1766. In 1741 a Frenchman named François Haly was engaged for ten years, and with a yearly salary of rather more than a thousand francs, under the following conditions:—

“That the travelling expenses of his wife and children should be given him, and that his salary should be paid as soon as he made before the Director and two competent judges the different kinds of porcelain which he had undertaken to make.” Haly agreed to surrender his recipes, and it was promised him that he should have two modellers and one painter working by his side, and that if in one year his porcelain were satisfactory, the Count would make him a present of a thousand tornoises.[100]

Porcelain was first produced at Alcora towards the middle of the eighteenth century. A contract was drawn up on March 24th, 1764, with a German called John Christian Knipfer, who had already worked there in the pottery section. By the original agreement, which exists in the archives, we find he was to prepare works of “porcelain and painting similar to those made at Dresden, during a period of six years, under the following conditions:—

“That the said Knipfer obliges himself to make and teach the apprentices the composition and perfection of porcelain paste, its varnishes, and colours, and whatever he may know at the present time, or discover during this period of six years; he is not to prevent the Director of the Works from being present at all the essays made.

“The said Knipfer offers to make and varnish porcelain, and to employ gold and silver in its decoration, and in that of the ordinary wares; likewise the colours of crimson, purple, violet, blues of different shades, yellow, greens, browns, reds, and black.

“That Knipfer will give up an account of his secrets, and the management and manner of using them, in order that in all times the truth of what he has asserted may be verified.”

LXXI
ORNAMENT IN PORCELAIN OF THE BUEN RETIRO

In 1774 a Frenchman named François Martin was engaged to make “hard paste porcelain, Japanese faïence, English paste (pipeclay), and likewise to mould and bake it: the necessary materials to be provided by the Count of Aranda.” Riaño says that the combined assistance of Knipfer and Martin went far to better the products of the factory.

Martin died in 1786, and Knipfer left soon afterwards. A Frenchman was now engaged, whose services proved also beneficial to the works. This was Pierre Cloostermans, “a skilful man, well versed in the manufacture of porcelain pastes, as well as in painting and decorating them.” Cloostermans, however, was much molested by the envy of the Spanish workmen at Alcora, as well as by their typical intolerance in matters of religion, although the Count, his master, behaved towards him with the utmost kindness. Under his supervision, the quality of Alcora ware was notably improved. Figures and groups of many kinds were attempted, and even Wedgwood jasper ware was creditably imitated. In 1789, among other pottery that was sent to Madrid were “two hard paste porcelain cups, adorned with low relief in the English style.” The most important one was moulded by Francisco Garcés, the garlands and low reliefs by Joaquín Ferrer, sculptor, the flowers on the covers by an apprentice, helped by Cloostermans.

Dated in the same year (1789), Riaño quotes an interesting letter from the Count of Aranda to Don Pedro Abadia, his steward. “I wish,” he said, “to export the porcelain of my manufactory, but chiefly in common objects, such as cups of different kinds, tea and coffee services, etc. These may be varied in form and colour, the principal point being that the paste should bear hot liquids, for we Spaniards above everything wish that nothing we buy should ever break. By no means let time be wasted in making anything that requires much loss of time. The chief object is that the pastes should be of first-rate excellence and durability.”

In 1793 Cloostermans was driven from the country by political disturbances; but he was allowed to return in 1795, and resumed his duties at the factory. All through these years Alcora continued to make most excellent pottery. Essays were made with foreign earths, as well as with the best that could be found in Spain. About this time kaolin was discovered in Cataluña, and the Count was particularly anxious that this native product should be utilised at Alcora. “The kaolin of Cataluña,” he wrote in 1790, “may be good or bad, but it is acknowledged to be kaolin, and if we do not employ it I must close my works.”

The Count of Aranda and Pierre Cloostermans both died in 1798, and in 1800 the Duke of Hijar became the manager and proprietor of the potteries. “Two hundred workmen were employed, and pottery of every description was made, common earthenware, pipeclays in imitation of the English ones, and porcelain in small quantities; common wares were made in large quantities; the pipeclays were pronounced superior to the English in brilliancy, but were so porous that they were easily stained. A large number of snuff-boxes and other small objects belong to this period.”—(Riaño.)

In the early years of the nineteenth century Alcora ware deteriorated not a little. This decline was further aggravated by the French invasion; and although an attempt was subsequently made to revive the industry by bringing craftsmen from the porcelain factory of Madrid, it suffered fresh relapses and produced henceforward little but the commonest kinds of ware. “This system,” says Riaño, “continued until 1858, when the Duke of Hijar sold the manufactory to Don Ramón Girona, who brought over English workmen from Staffordshire in order to improve the wares. Many imitations of the older styles have also been made at Alcora of late years.”

Riaño appends instructive tables, which I copy in Appendix I, of every kind of pottery manufactured at Alcora. He also believes that a great deal of pottery which was formerly thought to proceed from French or English factories is really of Alcora make, including “a great quantity of objects of white pipeclay porcelain which have been found of late years in Spain. They have hitherto been classified by amateurs as Leeds pottery. We find, in papers relating to Alcora, that a decided distinction is made between white and straw-coloured pottery. This indication may be sufficient to distinguish it from English wares.”

The celebrated Royal Porcelain Factory of the Buen Retiro at Madrid, formerly situated in the public gardens of that name and popularly known as the “Fabrica de la China,” was founded in 1759 by Charles the Third, who erected a vast edifice for this purpose, and filled it with a multitude of workmen and their families, including two hundred and twenty-five persons whom he brought over from his other factory of Capo-di-Monte in Italy. He also transferred a great part of the material.[101] The cost of the new works amounted to eleven and a half millions of reales, and they were terminated in 1764. The cost of keeping up the factory is stated by Larruga to have amounted to three millions of reales yearly. The first directors were Juan Tomás Bonicelli and Domingo Bonicelli, and the first modellers-in-chief and superintendents, possessing the secrets of the fabrication (secretistas), were Cayetano Schepers and Carlos Gricci.

Riaño says that every kind of porcelain was made at the Buen Retiro, “hard and soft paste, white china, glazed or unglazed, or painted and modelled in the style of Capo-di-Monte.” A great many objects existed imitating the blue jasper ware of Wedgwood, and they also made flowers, coloured and biscuit, groups (Pl. [lxxi].), and single figures, and painted porcelain of different kinds. Great quantities of tiles for pavements were also made there, which may still be seen at the Casa del Labrador at Aranjuez: they are mentioned in the accounts which exist at the Ministry of Finance for 1807 and 1808. We find in these same accounts interesting details of the objects made monthly. In January, 1808, a large number of figures were made, including 151 heads for the table centre which was made for the king, 306 objects ornamented with paintings, 2506 tiles, 577 objects of less artistic importance, such as dishes, plates, etc. The finest specimens which exist are in the Neapolitan style, and are two rooms at the palaces of Madrid and Aranjuez, of which the walls are completely covered with China plaques and looking-glasses, modelled in the most admirable manner with figures, fruits, and flowers. The room at Aranjuez is covered with a bold ornamentation of figures in the Japanese style, in high relief, painted with colours and gold with the most exquisite details. The figures unite the fine Italian modelling with the Japanese decoration. The chandelier is in the same style (Plate [lxxii].). Upon a vase on the wainscot to the right of the entrance door is the following inscription:—

JOSEPH
GRICCI
DELINEAV^it
ET
SCUL^it
1763.

This same date is repeated in the angles, and in some shields near the roof we find,

“AÑO
1765;

probably the year the work was terminated.”

LXXII
ROOM DECORATED WITH PORCELAIN OF THE BUEN RETIRO
(Royal Palace of Aranjuez)

The earliest mark upon the Buen Retiro porcelain was a blue fleur-de-lis, to which were subsequently added the letter M and a royal crown. Still later, in the reign of Charles the Fourth, the mark used was a fleur-de-lis with two crossed C's.

The object of the Buen Retiro Factory was almost wholly to supply the Crown with costly ware, and would-be visitors were jealously excluded. Townsend wrote in 1786: “I tried to obtain admission to the china manufacture, which is likewise administered on the king's account, but his Majesty's injunctions are so severe, that I could neither get introduced to see it, nor meet with anyone who had ever been able to procure that favour for himself. I was the less mortified upon this occasion, because from the specimens which I have seen, both in the palace at Madrid and in the provinces, it resembles the manufacture of Sèvres, which I had formerly visited in a tour through France.”

Laborde also complained that the factory was “wholly inaccessible: all entrance to it is interdicted, and its existence is only ascertained by the exhibition which is made of its productions in the royal palace.” The same writer refers to another class of work which was produced here, namely, stone mosaic. “The process by which stone is wrought into pictures is as delicate as it is curious: a selection is made from marble fragments of various shades and dimensions, which are found, by judicious assimilation, to produce no bad resemblance to painting.” Jean François de Bourgoing, French Minister at Madrid, was lucky enough, in 1782, to penetrate into the factory and view the process. “Le Monarque actuel,” he wrote, “a établi dans leur intérieur une fabrique de porcelaine, dont l'entrée est jusqu'à présent interdite à tout le monde. On veut sans doute que ses essais se perfectionnent dans le silence, avant de les exposer aux regards des curieux. Ses productions ne peuvent encore se voir que dans les Palais du Souverain, ou dans quelques Cours d'Italie, auxquelles il les envoie en présens. On travaille dans le même édifice à certains ouvrages de marqueterie, qui sont encore peu connus en Europe. J'y pénétrai un jour, sous les auspices d'un étranger distingué en faveur duquel le Roi avoit levé la prohibition rigoureuse, qui en exclut tout le monde. Je suis témoin de la patience and de l'adresse avec lesquelles on taille and on rapproche divers petits morceaux de marbre coloré, pour en former des tableaux assez compliqués, qui en faisant à-peu-près le même effet que la peinture, ont sur elle l'avantage de braver par leur couleur immortelles les ravages du temps, qui n'épargnent pas les plus belles productions de cet art.”[102]

This factory was not long-lived. Until 1803 it followed the styles of the older establishment at Capo-di-Monte, uniting neo-classic motives with the manner of Baroque. In that year it began to produce porcelain imitating that of Sèvres, and two Frenchmen, Vivien and Victor Perche, were brought from Paris to superintend this change. “Among the finest specimens of this period,” says Riaño, “are a splendid clock and four vases, two mètres high, with porcelain flowers, which exist in one of the state rooms of the Palace of Madrid. The vases are placed in the four corners of the room. The clock is ornamented with large biscuit figures. A large number of vases of Retiro china exist at the royal palaces of Madrid, Aranjuez, and the Escorial. They are often finely mounted in gilt bronze with muslin or porcelain flowers. The blue of the imitations of Wedgwood is not so pure, nor is the biscuit work so fine as the English. Gold is often added to these specimens.”

LXXIII
PORCELAIN OF THE MONCLOA FACTORY

Nevertheless, this manufacture was by now decadent. It had suffered severely from the death of Charles the Third, and upon the French invasion in 1808 was seized by the enemy and occupied by them for several months. During the reign of the “intruso,” Joseph Buonaparte, porcelain was still produced to some extent; but by the time of the Peninsular campaign the works had practically ceased. “Near this quarter,” wrote Ford, describing the Retiro gardens, towards the middle of last century, “was La China, or the royal porcelain manufactory, that was destroyed by the invaders, and made by them into a fortification, which surrendered, with two hundred cannon, August 14th, 1812, to the Duke. It was blown up October 30th, by Lord Hill, when the misconduct of Ballesteros compelled him to evacuate Madrid. Now La China is one of the standing Spanish and afrancesado calumnies against us, as it is stated that we, the English, destroyed this manufactory from commercial jealousy, because it was a rival to our potteries. ‘What can be done (as the Duke said) with such libels but despise them. There is no end of the calumnies against me and the army, and I should have no time to do anything else if I were to begin either to refute or even to notice them?’ (Disp., Oct. 16, 1813.) These china potsherds and similar inventions of the enemy shivered against his iron power of conscious superiority.

“The real plain truth is this. The French broke the ollas, and converted this Sèvres of Madrid into a Bastile, which, and not the pipkins, was destroyed by the English, who now, so far from dreading any Spanish competition, have actually introduced their system of pottery; and accordingly very fair china is now made at Madrid and Seville, and by English workmen. At the latter place a convent, also converted by Soult into a citadel, is now made a hardware manufactory by our countryman, Mr Pickman. Ferdinand the Seventh, on his restoration, re-created La China, removing the workshops and warerooms to La Moncloa, once a villa of the Alva family on the Manzanares.”

This factory of La Moncloa was founded in 1816, and it continued working until 1849. A specimen of the Moncloa ware is reproduced in Plate [lxxiii].

Outside the royal palaces of Spain, the Buen Retiro porcelain is scarce. The choicest collections which are not the property of the Crown belong, or have belonged till recently, to the Marquis of Arcicollar, the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, and Don Francisco Laiglesia.

Footnotes:

[60] Martin Hume, The Spanish People, p. 15 (note).

[61] “A ware exactly like that of Arezzo, called by some the red Roman ware, and by others Samian, distinguished by its close grain composed of a fine clay, and presenting, when broken, edges of an opaque light red colour, whilst the inner and outer surfaces are quite smooth, and of a brighter and darker red, is found in all places of the ancient world to which the Roman arms or civilisation reached. It is distinguished from the Aretine by its darker tone, stronger glaze, and coarser ornamentation. Possibly, the whole passage of Pliny in which he speaks of the earthenware of his day refers to this red ware. Thus, for dishes he praises the Samian and the Aretine ware; for cups, that of Surrentum, Asta and Pollentia, Saguntum and Pergamus. Tralles and Mutina had their manufactories. Cos was most esteemed; Hadria produced the hardest ware. That one of these, that of Saguntum, was a red ware, is clear; that of Cumæ was also of the same colour…. That the red ware is found amidst the dense forests of Germany and on the distant shores of Britain, is a remarkable fact in the civilisation of the old world. It was apparently an importation, being exactly identical wherever discovered, and is readily distinguished from the local pottery.”—Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, pp. 560, 561.

[62] “It belongs to the class of tender lustrous pottery, consisting of a bright red paste like sealing-wax, breaking with a close texture, and covered with a siliceous, or, according to some, a metallic glaze. This glaze is exceedingly thin, transparent, and equally laid upon the whole surface, only slightly augmenting the colour of the clay.”—Birch, p. 561.

[63] The falcon is one of the commonest devices on all Persian pottery, and was, in fact, the national emblem of the chase. Its importance for the purpose of pursuing and securing game is well described in Sir John Malcolm's Sketches in Persia.

[64] The watersellers' Ordinance of 1516 enacts that each of these vendors shall carry a minimum load of six cántaros, and that the cántaros themselves shall be “of the round shape, and not the Moorish ones, as these have long spouts; each cántaro to be closed with a cork.” The latter is the typical pitcher of Morocco. “As we were talking, neighbours dropped in, in the familiar Eastern way, and sat quiet and self-contained, occasionally drinking from one of the two long-necked and porous water-jars, known as ‘Baradas’ or the ‘coolers,’ which stand, their wooden stoppers tied to them with a palmetto cord, on each side the divan.”—Cunninghame Graham, Mogreb-el-Acksa, p. 88.

[65] The latter, which was the finer of the two, was dug out by Don Ivo de la Cortina. It has subsequently been allowed to go to pieces, but a coloured plate depicting it will be found in the first volume of the Museo Español de Antigüedades.

[66] Tessela and crusta are defined by him as follows: “Tesselae sunt e quibus domicilia sternuntur a tesseris nominata, id est quadratis lapillis, per diminutionem.”

“Crustae sunt tabulae marmoris. Unde et marmorari parietes et constati dicuntur. Qui autem marmora secandi in crustas rationem excogitaverunt non constat. Fiunt autem arena et ferro serraque in praetenui linea premente arenas, tractuque ipse secante: sed crassior arena plus erodet marmoris. Nam tenuis fabricis et polituris accomodata est.”

[67] Among these ruins, at five miles' distance from the city, pieces of common brick have come to light; but no glazed pottery of any kind, whether as foseifesa, azulejos, or mosaic.

[68] Dozy's version of The History of Almagreb, by Ibn-Adzarí the Moor; p. 253.

[69] According to Gestoso, the colours in use among the Almohades consisted of green, black, caramel or honey, and deep purple. These colours underwent no change until the sixteenth century.

[70] Gestoso says that florid Gothic and Renaissance motives are found occasionally in the older cuenca tiles. This was, however, quite exceptional.

[71] A plaque belongs to Señor Gestoso which proceeds from the demolished Mudejar church of San Miguel at Seville. It measures fifteen inches high by ten wide, and is decorated with a representation, in bas-relief, of the Coronation of the Virgin. The eyebrows, eyelids, and lips of the figures are executed in cobalt upon a thick layer of white glaze, and strongly recall the method of Lucca della Robbia. Gestoso considers that this plaque was made in the latter part of the fourteenth century. If so, it is antecedent to the work of della Robbia (whose Resurrection upon one of the doors of the Duomo of Florence dates from 1438) by a good many years. A similar example, also by an unknown hand and representing the Coronation, is in the chapel of the Sagrario of Seville Cathedral.

[72] Certain azulejos, signed by Niculoso and dated 1500, were formerly existing in the palace of the Counts of El Real de Valencia in the city of this name. These tiles were executed in relief, and proved that Niculoso did not work exclusively in the Italian style.

[73] In Portugal, tiles which Gestoso believes to have been made at Seville, exist in Coimbra cathedral, the church of San Roque at Lisbon, and the two palaces of Cintra. In our own country, Seville tiles are stated by Marryat and Demmin to line the walls of the Mayor's Chapel at Bristol, whither they were doubtless conveyed by one of the numerous English merchants who traded between Spain and England, and who are known to have made their home at Seville in the sixteenth century. Another tile of Seville workmanship, proceeding from Haccombe Church, Devonshire, is in the British Museum.

[74] The pisano process is believed by Gestoso to have succumbed before the cuenca. He says he is aware of no pisano tiling which can be dated from as late as the second half of the seventeenth century.

[75] Guía de Granada; pp. 35, 36.

[76] Pure red is the rarest of the colours employed in Moorish tile-work. It is, however, found in a single part of the Alhambra; namely, among the superb tile-decoration of the Torre de la Cautiva.

Gestoso says that red was practically unknown among the Seville potters. Sometimes, however, in coats of arms, a space that should have properly been gules was left uncoloured in the actual making of the tile, and painted red with oil-colour after firing.

[77] Coloured plates of Catalan and other Spanish azulejos are published with García Llansó's text in the Historia General del Arte; Vol. II.

[78] Vol. iii., p. 56.

[79] Alafia is written in Neshki,

, which word, says Señor Osma, by suppressing the diacritical points and prolonging some of the lines, was converted by the potter into the conventional and exclusively decorative device:—

[80] “Sobre tot es la bellessa de la obra de manizes daurada é maestriuolment pintada que ja tot lo mon ha enamorat entāt que lo papa, é los cardenals é lo princeps del mon per special gracia la requeren é stan marauellats que d'terra se puxa fer obra axi excellent é noble.”

[81] Wallis, The Oriental Influence on Italian Ceramic Art. London; 1900.

[82] In lustred pottery these colours, and particularly blue, are far the commonest. It has been found that other colours, such as green and black, were ill adapted to the lustre process.

[83] I have fully described these forgeries in Chapters II and III of Granada: Memories, Adventures, Studies, and Impressions.

[84] This lustre is faint but quite distinguishable, and Rada y Delgado was clearly in error in supposing that there is none.

[85] The lost jar mentioned by Owen Jones, of which a drawing has been made, was of the same shape as the one which now remains; but in its decoration were included the arms of the Nasrite dynasty of Granada. It is this circumstance which has induced Gómez Moreno to suppose that these vases were the work of Granadino artists.

[86] “Los nichos para chinelas,” as he calls them, in describing the Sala de Comares.

[87] J. R. Mélida, Jarrones arábigos de loza vidriada; published in the Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursionistas.

[88] Relación del viaje hecho por Felipe II. en 1585. Madrid, 1876.

[89] The village of Muel continued to be a centre of this craft. Townsend, who travelled in Spain in 1786 and 1787, wrote of it:—“There are many potters, who turn their own wheels, not by hand, but with their feet, by means of a larger wheel concentric with that on which they mould the clay, and nearly level with the floor.”

[90] No direct proof has been found that lustred ware was ever made at Seville; but a document copied by Gestoso, and which I have already mentioned (p. 152), records that the famous ollero of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, named Fernan Martinez Guijarro, reserved a department (“tiendas del dorado”) of his premises for making or for storing lustred pottery.

[91] These, says Señor Osma, are doubtful in every case, and are only found on plates which bear the figure of a lion. Two plates in this gentleman's possession are thus marked

, and another

[92] Travels through Spain; p. 305. Swinburne could have been no lover of nature to speak in such terms of the smell of earth.

[93] One of the prettiest of the popular Spanish coplas has the alcarraza for its theme;—

“Alcarraza de tu casa
chiquilla, quisiera ser,
para besarte los labios
cuando fueras á beber.”

“Dearest, I would be the alcarraza in your house; so should I kiss your lips each time you drank from me.”

[94] Laborde's translator adds: “These jars are very common in Jamaica; they are of different sizes, from a pint to three pints. A number of them are ranged at night in the balconies, to furnish a supply of cool water. Coolers of a similar kind have been lately introduced in England.”

[95] “Those of the finest quality,” adds Ford, “are called Bucaros; the best come from South America—the form is more elegant, the clay finer, and often sweet-scented; many women have a trick of biting, even eating bits of them.”

[96] Handbook; Vol. I., p. 26.

[97] “On y fait,” wrote Alvarez de Colmenar, “des ouvrages vernissés d'une façon ingénieuse, avec des peintures variées de bon goût; on estime ces ouvrages autant que ceux de Pise et des Indes Orientales, et on en fournit plusieurs provinces. Ce négoce rend plus de cinquante mille ducats par an.”—Annales d'Espagne et de Portugal; Vol. II., p. 187. This work is dated 1740, but my copy is reprinted from another edition published earlier in the century.

[98] For a sketch of the origin and growth of the Spanish trade guilds, see Appendix H.

[99] Historia General del Arte.—Vol. II.: Cerámica, by García Llansó.

[100] Riaño; Handbook; pp. 182, 183.

[101] On September 11th, 1759, the king wrote to his Secretary of State, Richard Wall:—“The workmen and utensils of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory of Capo-di-Monte must also be sent from Naples to Alicante, in the vessels prepared for this purpose, in order to proceed from Alicante to Madrid. The necessary conveyances are to be provided, and the expenses to be charged to his Majesty's account.”

[102] Nouveau Voyage en Espagne; Vol. I., pp. 232, 233.

[GLASS]

Small vessels of uncoloured glass, belonging to the Celtic period, have been discovered in Galicia; so that the origin of this industry in Spain is possibly pre-Roman. After the conquest glass was made here by the Romans,[103] who built their ovens with a celebrated argil (potter's earth) extracted from the neighbourhood of Valencia or Tortosa. The Roman glass was doubtless imitated by the native Spaniards: at least we know from observations by Saint Isidore that this substance was quite familiar to the Visigoths. “Olim fiebat et in Italia, et per Gallias, et Hispaniam arena alba mollissima pila mola qua terebatur.” The same author speaks with admiration of coloured glass-work imitating precious stones. “Tingitur etiam multis modis, ita ut hyacinthos, saphirosque et virides imitetur et oniches vel aliarum gemmarum colores”; and again; “Fingunt enim eas ex diverso genere nigro, candido, minioque colore. Nam pro lapide pretiosissimo smaragdo quidam vitrum arte inficiunt, et fallit oculos sub dolo quadam falsa irriditas quoadusque non est qui probet simulatum et arguat: sic et alia alio atque alio modo. Neque enim est sine fraude ulla vita mortalium.” We gather from these statements that coloured glass in imitation of the genuine precious stone was freely manufactured by the Visigoths. Such imitations, justifying by their excellence Saint Isidore's assertion that “vera a falsis discernere magna difficultas est,” may still be seen upon the crowns and other ornaments discovered at Guarrazar (see Vol. I., pp. [15–29]), as well as upon triptyches and weapons. Indeed, a taste for imitation jewels forms an inherent trait of Spanish character, and is discoverable at all moments of the national history. Travellers have constantly observed it, and the remarks, already quoted, of Countess d'Aulnoy, are confirmed by other authors. “In the broken banks south of the river,” wrote Swinburne of the Manzanares at Madrid, “are found large quantities of pebbles, called Diamonds of Saint Isidro. They cut them like precious stones, and ladies of the first fashion wear them in their hair as pins, or on their fingers as rings. They have little or no lustre, and a very dead glassy water. The value of the best rough stone does not exceed a few pence.”

It is chiefly in the form of imitation gems that specimens of the earliest Spanish glass have been preserved until our time,[104] although the characteristic of old Roman glass which is known in Italian as the lattocinio or “milk-white” ornament, in the form of a thread or line carried all over the surface of a vessel, remains until this day a common feature of the glass of Spain, besides being found in Spanish-Moorish glass-work.

Rico y Sinobas says that the rules for cutting glass by means of a diamond or naife (as it was once called) are embodied in a treatise titled El Lapidario, originally written (perhaps in the fourth, fifth, or sixth century) in Hebrew, and which was brought to Spain some two or three hundred years later. This treatise was translated into Arabic by one Abolais, who lived at some time previous to the thirteenth century, and subsequently (in the year 1248, and by command of Alfonso the Learned) into the Castilian language.

Mixed up with a great deal of fabulous and fantastic matter, this treatise contains instructive and interesting notices of the composition and the colouring of old glass, including that of Spain. One of such notices is the following. “Of the eleventh degree of the sign of Sagittarius is the glass stone, containing a substance which is a body in itself (sand), and another which is added to it (salt), and when they clean these substances and draw them from the fire, they make between the two a single body. The stone thus made (glass) has many colours. Sometimes it is white (and this is nobler and better than the others), or sometimes it is red, or green, or xade (a dark, burnt colour), or purple. It is a stone which readily melteth in the fire, but which, when drawn therefrom, turneth again to its former substance: and if it be drawn from the flame unseasonably, and without cooling it little by little, it snappeth asunder. And it receiveth readily whatever colour be placed upon it. And if an animal be hurt therewith, it openeth as keen a wound as though it were of iron.”

The treatise also describes a stone called ecce, which was used in glassmaking, saying that it was found in Spain, “in a mountain, not of great height, which overlooks the town of Arraca, and is called Secludes. And the stone is of an intense black colour, spotted with yellow drops. It is shiny and porous, brittle, and of light weight …; and if it be ground up with honey, and the glass be smeared with it and submitted to the fire, it dyes the glass of a beautiful gold colour, and makes it stronger than it was before, so that it does not melt so readily, or snap asunder with such ease.”

I have said that the power of a diamond to cut glass is referred to in the same work, which further tells us that this gem “breaketh all other kind of stones, boring holes in them or cutting them, and no other stone is able to bruise it; nay more, it powdereth all other stones if it be rubbed upon them …; and such as seek to cut or perforate those other stones take portions of a diamond, small and slender and sharp-pointed, and mount them on slips of silver or of copper, and with them make the holes or cuttings they require. Thus do they grave and carve intaglios.”

All these branches of glassmaking were therefore practised by the Spaniards from an early period of their history. This people were also familiar with the use of emery powder, of talc applied to covering windows, and of rock crystal. We read in the translation of Abolais that crystal at that time was “found in many parts, albeit the finest is that of Ethiopia. The substance which composes it is frozen water, petrified. And the proof of this is that when it is broken, small grains are discovered to be within, that made their entry as it was becoming stone (crystallizing); or again, in some of it is found what seems to be clear water. And it possesses two qualities in which it is distinct from every other stone: for when crystal is heated it receiveth any colouring that is applied to it, and is wrought with greater ease, besides being melted by fire; insomuch that it can be made into any shape desired; and if this shape be round, and the stone be set in the sun, it burneth anything inflammable that be set before it: yet does it not effect this by any virtue of its own, but by the clearness of its substance, and by the sunbeams which beat upon it, and by the roundness of its form.”

We seem to foreshadow here, clearly enough, the application of this substance to making glasses to assist the sight, especially when the author of the treatise adds that on looking through the crystal, the human eye discovers “details of the greatest beauty, and things that are secreted from the simple (i.e. the unaided) vision.”

Rico y Sinobas (who possessed a fine collection of antique glass, Spanish and non-Spanish) inclined to think that in the time of the Romans the finest and strongest glass, as well as the costliest and the most sought after, was that which was manufactured in Spain. In early times the chief centres of Spanish glass-making were situated in the heart of the Peninsula (where now is New Castile), in the neighbourhood of Tortosa, and in certain districts lying between the Pyrenees and the coast of Cataluña, though subsequently the practice of this craft extended through the kingdoms of Valencia and Murcia, and the valleys of Ollería, Salinas, Busot, and the Rio Almanzora, forming a zone which reached from Cape Creus to Cape Gata. Other regions in which the craft was introduced, apparently at a later epoch, were those of the Mediterranean littoral, Cuenca, Toledo, Avila, Segovia, and other parts of New Castile, as far as the slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama. In the rest of the Peninsula there is not the slightest indication (excepting an obscure reference by Strabo, to vessels and receptacles of wax) that glass was made during the Roman domination of the country, either in Andalusia, Lusitania (Portugal), or in the northern regions of Cantabria.

Rico y Sinobas has described a Spanish glass-oven of those primitive times. He says that such as were used for making objects of a fair size consisted of three compartments resting one upon the other; the lowest cylindrical, to hold the fire and ashes, the next with a domed top, for concentrating the heat, and the third and uppermost, which also had a domed top, for holding the pieces of glass that were set to cool by slow degrees. The wall of the oven contained a number of openings, which served, according to the level at which they were situated, for controlling the fire, adjusting the crucibles, or extracting, by means of metal rods, the lumps of molten glass, previously to submitting them to the action of the blowpipe. The dimensions of such of these primitive ovens as have been found in Spain or Italy, are nine feet in height by six feet in diameter, and the material of which they are built is argil, of a kind insensible to heat, and carefully freed by washing from all foreign, soluble, or inflammable substances. The crucibles, which were fitted in the oven two, four, or at most six at a time, were of this argil also, wrought and purified with even greater care. Ovens and crucibles of a smaller size were used for making diminutive objects such as beads and imitation precious stones.[105]

Almería was probably the most important centre of Spanish-Moorish glass-making, and is mentioned in connection with this craft by Al-Makkari. The oriental shape of the older vessels which were made in this locality is still preserved in certain objects such as jars, bowls, flasks, and aguardiente-bottles, which are still manufactured, or were so until quite recently, throughout a region extending from Almería to the slopes of the Alpujarra. “All these objects,” says Riaño, “are decorated with a serrated ornamentation of buttons, trellis-work, and the lines to which I have already alluded, which were placed there after the object was made, in the Roman style. The paste is generally of a dark green colour, and when we find these same features in vessels of clear white glass, we may affirm that they are contemporary imitations made at Cadalso or elsewhere, for they are very seldom to be met with in the provinces of Almería and Granada, and are generally found at Toledo and other localities; it is, moreover, a common condition of oriental art that its general form complies with a geometrical tracery, and we never find, as in Italian works of art, forms and capricious ornamentations which interfere with the symmetry of the general lines, and sacrifice them to the beauty of the whole.”

None of the original Moorish glass of the Alhambra has survived till nowadays. Most of it was destroyed by the explosion, in the year 1590, of a powder factory which lay immediately beneath the palace and beside the river Darro. In the Alhambra archives, particular mention is made of the circular glass windows or “eyes,” only the corresponding holes of which remain, in the baths of the same palace. This glass, which may have been in colour, was also destroyed by the explosion, as were the windows, “painted in colour with fancy devices and Arabic lettering,” of the Sala de Embajadores,[106] those of the Hall of the Two Sisters, and certain windows, “painted with many histories and royal arms,” belonging to the church of the Alhambra.

Excellent glass, reported by some authors to have equalled that of Venice, was made at Barcelona from as early as the thirteenth century. An inventory of the Crown of Aragon, dated A.D. 1389 and quoted by García Llansó, mentions as manufactured here, glass sweetmeat-vessels, cups, and silver-mounted tankards blazoned with the royal arms. The guild of Barcelona glassmakers was founded in 1455, and later in the same century Jerónimo Paulo wrote that “glass vessels of varying quality and shape, and which may well compete with the Venetian, are exported to Rome and other places.” Similar statements are made by Marineus Siculus and Gaspar Barreyros.

Other centres of Spanish glass-making were Caspe in Aragon, Seville, Valencia,[107] Pinar de la Vidriera, Royo Molino (near Jaen,) El Recuenco (Guadalajara), Cebreros (Avila), Medina del Campo, Venta del Cojo, Venta de los Toros de Guisando, and Castiel de la Peña in Castile. The glass-works of Castiel de la Peña were founded by the intelligent and indefatigable Hernando de Zafra, secretary to the Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. “It has been calculated,” says Riaño, “that about two tons of sand were used at these glass-works every month.”

More important than the foregoing was the famous factory of a village in Toledo province called Cadalso, or sometimes, from the nature of its only industry, Cadalso (or Cadahalso) de los Vidrios. The glass made here is mentioned in terms of high praise by various writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Marineus Siculus and Mendez Silva. The former of these authors says in his work upon the Memorable Things of Spain: “Glass was produced in several towns of Castile, the most important being that of Cadalso, which supplied the whole kingdom.” Ewers and bottles of Cadalso glass are mentioned in the Alburquerque inventory. Mendez Silva says that the number of ovens was originally three, and that their coloured glass was equal to Venetian (Plate [lxxiv].). This was towards the middle of the seventeenth century. Larruga tells us that by the end of the eighteenth this local industry was languishing. One of the three ovens had been abandoned. The other two produced inferior glass, as well as in diminished quantities.

LXXIV
VESSELS OF SPANISH GLASS
(South Kensington Museum)

The glass of Cataluña maintained its ancient reputation all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and part of the seventeenth, and at this time was still compared with the Venetian by observant travellers (Plate [lxxv].). Besides the capital, the principal glass-works in this province were at Almatret, Moncada, Cervelló, and Mataró. In 1489 a Barcelonese, by name Vicente Sala, and his sons applied to the City Council for leave to construct an oven at Moncada “in order to pursue the craft of glass-making, lo qual a present aci se obre axi bellament e suptil com en part del mon (seeing that the glass we manufacture in this neighbourhood competes with any in the world for subtlety and beauty).”

A document is extant from which we learn that the City Councillors of Barcelona made strenuous efforts to prevail upon Ferdinand the Catholic to abolish a certain monopoly or other form of exclusive privilege which he had conceded to a local glass-maker. The result of this appeal is not recorded. In 1503 Ferdinand presented his consort with two hundred and seventy-four glass objects made at Barcelona, and Philip the Second possessed a hundred and nineteen pieces proceeding from the same locality.

LXXV
VESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS
(From Drawings by the Author)

An important development of this craft was the manufacture of coloured glass for churches and cathedrals. In the Peninsula, the earliest introducers of this branch of glass-making were principally natives of Germany, France, and Flanders, who came to Spain at the beginning of the fifteenth century.[108] Many of the oldest windows executed by these foreigners, or by the Spaniards who were taught by them, are still existing in the cathedrals of León, Toledo, Burgos, Barcelona, and the Seo of Zaragoza. León has several windows which date from as far back as the thirteenth century, and in which the glass is in small pieces, arranged as though it were mosaic. Some of the later and larger windows in the same cathedral are thirty-five feet high, and one, dating from the sixteenth century, is believed to have been presented to this temple by Mary of England, prior to her marriage with Philip the Second.

It was, however, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the custom became general, in Spain as in other lands, of colouring the surface of white glass by partial fusing—a process which is mentioned in the treatise of Abolais, to which I have referred repeatedly. Between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries the coloured windows of Spanish temples were still composed of pieces of glass united in the manner of mosaic, forming ornamental patterns of stars and similar devices; but subsequently to this period the decorative themes are said to be painted en caballete, and consist of figures, or the representation of scenes from Scripture. In Spain, and dating from the twelfth century, the workshops for preparing this coloured glass were commonly situated within the precincts of important temples, such as Toledo cathedral, or else, as was the case at Burgos, in separate buildings and dependencias. Here, in the square ovens characteristic of that age, and before it was mounted in the ponderous leaden frame, the glass was coloured with exquisite solicitude and patience by the hand of the master-craftsman, sometimes with a colour upon one of its surfaces alone, sometimes with the same colour upon both, or sometimes with a different colour upon either surface. The cartoons from which such windows were constructed, and which were often designed by painters of renown, were usually three in number. The first contained, upon a reduced scale, a coloured outline of the window; the second, drawn to the exact scale of the window as it was to be, was composed of all the pieces cut out and numbered according to the various colours; and the third, also of the projected size of the window, was kept complete, to serve as a pattern in case the window should suffer any accident, and require to be restored or mended. Not one of these cartoons is known to be preserved to-day, but Rico y Sinobas points out that from the strong and simple character of their colouring and outline, the illuminated illustrations of Spanish thirteenth century manuscripts, such as the Cantigas, and the Book of Chess of Alfonso the Learned, may well have been utilized for, or else be copied from, glass windows of that period.

As soon as the cartoon was finished, the window-painter traced it upon the surface of the glass. This was in square pieces, fitted conveniently together, with sufficient space between the pieces to allow the passage of the leads. Before being laid upon the glass and being submitted to the fixing action of fire, the colours were mixed with honey, urine, vinegar, and other fluids or substances which served as mediums to attach the colour to the glass. Thus prepared, and in the form of powder, the colours were allowed to dry for two or three days before the glass was placed in the oven. Yellow, which was the strongest colour, and that which penetrated deepest beneath the surface of the glass, was made from certain combinations of silver and nitrate of potash, while oxides or other forms of copper, lead, iron, tin, silver, and manganese, were used for making black, white, red, green, blue, purple, violet, or flesh-colour. These colours penetrated the glass to the depth of about half a millimetre; but sometimes, after the colour had been applied, the craftsman would submit the glass to friction by a wooden polisher or wheel, thus giving it an appearance of greater clearness and transparency at any spot he might desire.

Among the artists who produced the coloured windows of León cathedral were Master Joan de Arge (a.d. 1424), Master Baldovín, and Rodrigo de Ferreras. Those of Toledo date from early in the fifteenth century, and were made by Albert of Holland, Vasco Troya, Luis Pedro Francés, Juan de Campos, and others, including the eminent Dolfín, who, according to Cean, began to work here in 1418, by order of the archbishop, Don Sancho de Rojas. The documents collected and published for the first time by Zarco del Valle tell us that on March 22nd, 1424, Dolfín received from Alfonso Martinez, treasurer and superintendent of works, two hundred gold florins and certain other moneys on account of his total payment of four hundred gold florins for “the eighth window he is making for the head of the cathedral.” Other certificates of payment relating to Maestre Dolfín (as he always signed himself) are included in the same collection. By 1427 he was “defunct, God pardon him!” and the windows he had left unfinished were terminated by his assistant Lois (Louis).[109]

In 1458, and also at Toledo, a friar named Pablo began to repair the painted windows of the crucero. His pay was fixed by the “abbot and superintendent of works” at fifty maravedis each day, and that of “his lads, Ximeno and Juanico,” at one half of this amount. Other artists engaged in the same work were Pablo (not the friar just referred to), Peter, a German, and “Master Henry,” who was also German. Pablo received authority to purchase ten and a half quintales and thirteen pounds of coloured Flemish glass, at two thousand maravedis for each quintal. By a contract dated 1485 (he died between 1487 and 1493), Master Henry was handed by the cathedral authorities a sum of 150,000 maravedis “to proceed to Flanders or any other part he may desire, and where good glass is to be found, white, blue, green, scarlet, purple, yellow, or blackish (prieto), equal in thickness to the sample which he bears, and bring us thence such quantity as he has need of for the windows of our cathedral.”

It is evident from this notice that Spain was then unable to produce the finest quality of glass. With such as he brought with him from abroad, Henry engaged to fashion “every kind of figure, image, scroll, and other object whatsoever be commanded him, according to the place it is to fill; the colours of the glass to be well mingled and distributed.” He was also to make “the leaden casings stout and deep, so as to embrace and hold the glass aforesaid, that it may resist the air and wind.” In return for this, he was to be supplied with an erected scaffolding, with all the chalk and iron he might require, and with the proper number of assistants, receiving, in payment of his labour, one hundred and fifteen maravedis for every square palm of glass the preparation of which should satisfy the superintendent and examiners of works.

One of the witnesses to this document was Henry's wife, María Maldonada, who came forward to affix her signature “with the license and pleasure of the aforesaid Master Enrique, her husband.”

In 1433, Master Juan (perhaps the same as Joan de Arge, already mentioned) began to work at the windows of Burgos, where, later in this century, he was succeeded by Juan de Valdivieso and Diego de Santillana. We learn from the Documentos Inéditos (pp. 159, 160) that Santillana lived at Burgos, and that, on May 31st, 1512, he contracted to make three “historical windows” for the monastery of San Francisco, at a price of ninety-five maravedis for each palm of glass, this to be “of good colours and shades,” and “measured by the Burgos standard.” Two other contracts are preserved, signed by the same craftsman and both relating to Palencia. By one of them Santillana is to receive for six “storied windows,” the subjects of which are specified, ninety-five maravedis the palm, besides the scaffolding and his house and coals.

Arnao de Flandes (Arnold of Flanders) was appointed master glass-painter to Burgos cathedral in 1512. Other glass-painters who worked here in the sixteenth century were Francisco de Valdivieso, Gaspar Cotin, Juan de Arce, his son Juan and grandson Pedro, and, in the seventeenth century, Valentin Ruiz, Francisco Alonso, Simon Ruiz, and Francisco Alcalde. Most of the windows made by all these men have been destroyed by time and weather, and have been replaced by barren panes of white; but a few fine specimens of the original work may yet be seen in the chapels of the Presentation, the Constable, and San Jerónimo. Perhaps the most remarkable of any is the rose-window, above the Puerta del Sarmental.[110]

Other good cathedral windows prior to the sixteenth century are those of Avila, which date from about the year 1497, and were executed by Diego de Santillana, Juan de Valdivieso, and other artists; those of the Seo of Zaragoza, by the Catalans Terri and Jayme Romeu (1447); and some at Barcelona, painted in 1494 by Gil Fontanet.

It is, however, in the sixteenth century that Spanish ecclesiastical window-glass attains its highest grade of excellence.[111] Dating from this century are windows in Toledo cathedral, painted in 1503 by Vasco de Troya, in 1509 by Alejo Jiménez, in 1513 by Gonzalo de Córdoba (these are considered by competent judges to be the finest of any), in 1515 by Juan de la Cuesta, in 1522 by Juan Campos, in 1525 by Albert of Holland, in 1534 by Juan de Ortega, and in 1542 by Nicolás Vergara the elder.[112] In 1537 Ortega was engaged to repair the damaged or broken panes at a yearly salary of 11,250 maravedis. Where the panes were wanting, he was to replace them by new ones painted by his hand, receiving, for each palmo of new glass so painted, an extra payment of ninety maravedis.[113]

In the same century the windows of Seville cathedral, begun some years previously (Cean says in 1504) by Micer Cristóbal Alemán (“Master Christopher the German”), were continued by Masters Jacobo, Juan Juan Vivan, Juan Bernai, Bernardino de Gelandia, Juan Jaques, Arnold of Flanders (1525), Arnao de Vergara (1525), Charles of Bruges, (1557), and Vicente Menandro (1557).[114] In 1562 Diego de Valdivieso, and in 1570 Pedro de Valdivieso and Gerald of Holland, painted windows for Cuenca cathedral. In 1542 the same work was done at Palencia by Diego de Salcedo, and in 1533 George of Burgundy, “master in the art of glass,” then resident at Burgos, proceeded to the same town and engaged to renew the cathedral windows at a cost of a hundred maravedis for every palm of coloured glass, and fifty for every palm of plain.[115]

In 1544, sixty-two windows in the nave of Segovia cathedral were filled with painted glass prepared chiefly at Valladolid and Medina del Campo, though some was brought from Flanders. The remaining windows were left unfilled till 1676, in which year a canon of the cathedral, named Tomás de la Plaza Aguirre, succeeded in rediscovering a formula for the practise of this craft, and the panes yet needed were made and coloured at Valdequemada by Juan Danis, under Plaza Aguirre's supervision. Thirty-three additional windows were completed from this factory. According to Lecea y García, the chapter of Segovia cathedral possess, or possessed for many years, two curious manuscripts relating severally to The painting of glass windows, by Francisco Herranz, and Glass-making, by Juan Danis—the same who owned and worked the factory at Valdequemada. These interesting treatises were examined by Bosarte, who has described them. He says that the one on glass-making consisted of twenty-three sheets of clear writing, and the one on glass-painting of eight sheets; both manuscripts being in quarto size. The latter contained, distributed beside the text, sketches of the various instruments required for this craft. The other and longer monograph consisted of the following chapters:—(1) How to draw upon glass. (2) How to cut glass. (3) How to paint and shade glass. (4) Of the substances and ingredients for painting glass. (5) How to give a flesh-colour to glass. (6) How to give a yellow or golden colour to white or pale blue glass, but no other. (7) How to fire glass. (8) How to make the glass-oven.

Windows were painted in the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca by Sebastián Danglés in 1566 and by Juan Jordá in 1599, in that of Málaga by Octavio Valerio in 1579, and in those of Tarragona and Avila respectively, by Juan Guasch in 1571, and by Pierre de Chiberri in 1549. This craftsman was undoubtedly a foreigner. The following entry which concerns him is quoted by Rosell de Torres from the Libro de Fábrica of Segovia cathedral: “By order of the Canon Juan Rodriguez, on the twelfth day of August, I paid to Pierre de Chiberri, master-maker of window-glass, the sum of 56,560 maravedis, 34,960 for the casings of seven large windows with their side-windows—in all twenty-one casings—besides ten casings for the windows of the lower chapels, containing altogether MMMCCCCXCVI palms, amounting at ten maravedis the palm to the aforesaid 34,960 maravedis: also 19,125 maravedis for CCCLXXII palms of glass for the said chapels at a real and a half each palm, plus 2476 maravedis for certain glass which had yet to be measured because it was in the skylights. The total sum amounts to the aforesaid 56,560 maravedis.”[116]

During the seventeenth century, glass-work of various kinds continued to be produced upon a large scale at Barcelona, Mataró, Gerona, Cuenca, Toledo, Valmaqueda, and Seville. In 1680 the Duke of Villahermosa established a glass factory at San Martin de Valdeiglesias, and placed it under the direction of a native of Namur named Diodonet Lambot, aided by various other artists from the Netherlands. In 1683 Lambot was succeeded by Santiago Vandoleto, who proved incompetent, and caused, in 1692, the total stoppage of the factory.

I have said that glass was made at Medina del Campo, in the province of Valladolid. Pinheiro da Veiga's Pincigraphia, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, contains an interesting notice of this glassware. “Really, the glass-work of Valladolid is most beautiful, and worth going to see if only for the pleasure of its contemplation. There are objects of considerable size, such as (glass) pitchers of every form and colour. Others are called penados, and are of a syphon shape, pouring out water in small quantities.[117] Besides this there are all manner of cunningly contrived retorts such as we never see in Lisbon, and yet in Valladolid their cost is only moderate…. The principal shops for selling these and porcelain are two in number, and the prices are the same as in Portugal.”

Two very important Spanish glass factories were founded in the eighteenth century. The first, which was under Crown protection, was established by Don Juan Goyeneche in the year 1720 at a place called Nuevo Baztán, in the province of Toledo. The royal privilege allowed this factory to produce “all articles of glass up to a height of twenty inches, working and polishing the same, embellishing, and coating them with metal; to make looking-glasses and similar ornaments, glass vessels of all descriptions, white glass for window-panes, and glass objects of any kind or shape, whether already known to us, or that may be invented in the future.”

The factory of Nuevo Baztán continued working for some years, and turned out excellent glass for exportation to America and other parts; but it was killed eventually by the rising price of fuel, and above all by competition from abroad. “When the foreigners,” says Larruga in his Memorias políticas y económicas, “saw that the factory was in full swing, they conspired to bring about its ruin, and begged their ambassadors to communicate against it with the ministers; but finding this of no avail, and recognising the importance to themselves of overthrowing this manufacture, they decided to sell glassware at a price at which it would be impossible to sell the products of Nuevo Baztán. The amount of this reduction was the one-third part of the entire value. By this means the foreigners made it impossible for the factory to support itself, since the objects it produced were laid away and found no purchaser for years. This, and the cost of the wood required to keep the ovens burning day and night, not excepting feast-days (for to stop the fires for a moment would have meant the spoiling of the oven), induced the downfall of this celebrated factory, as soon as the fuel of all the neighbouring forests had been consumed.”

Nevertheless, upon the closing of these works, one of the experts who had been employed there, a Catalan named Ventura Sit, attracted by the forests of Valsain and the excellent and abundant sand obtainable in this locality—principally from near the villages of Espirdo and Bernuy de Porreros—decided to open another glass-works at La Granja. Here is the royal summer residence of San Ildefonso, and Sit was fortunate enough to secure at the outset—that is, in 1728—the firm protection of Philip the Fifth and of his consort, Isabel Farnese. Instructed by the sovereigns to make some mirrors, he produced these objects of a moderate size at first, increasing it, after the year 1734, to a maximum length of 145 inches by 85 in breadth. Larruga says that these mirrors were the largest produced anywhere at that time, and they continued to be made until very nearly the end of the century. They are often referred to in the narratives of travellers. Swinburne wrote in 1776: “Not far from Carthagena is a place called Almazaron, where they gather a fine red earth called Almagra, used in the manufactures of Saint Ildephonso, for polishing looking-glasses. In Seville, it is worked up with the tobacco, to give it a colour, fix its volatility, and communicate to it that softness which constitutes the principal merit of Spanish snuff.”

Describing the royal palace at Madrid, the same author says that the walls of the great audience-chamber “are incrustated with beautiful marble, and all round hung with large plates of looking-glass in rich frames. The manufactory of glass is at Saint Ildefonso, where they cast them of a very great size; but I am told they are apt to turn out much rougher and more full of flaws than those of France.”

According to Townsend (1786), “The glass manufacture is here carried to a degree of perfection unknown in England. The largest mirrors are made in a brass frame, one hundred and sixty-two inches long, ninety-three wide, and six deep, weighing near nine tons. These are designed wholly for the royal palaces, and for presents from the king. Yet even for such purposes the factory is ill-placed, and proves a devouring monster in a country where provisions are dear, fuel scarce, and carriage exceedingly expensive.”

Laborde wrote of the same factory a few years later: “There is also a glass-house, in which bottles are wrought of a superior quality; and white glasses, which are carved with much ingenuity (Plates [lxxvi]. and [lxxvii].). Near this glass-house has been founded a manufactory for mirrors, in a large and well-arranged edifice. There are two furnaces, and a considerable number of stoves, in which the plates are left to cool after they have been precipitated. They are of all dimensions, and the largest that have yet been fabricated. They are sometimes from a hundred, a hundred and thirty, or a hundred and thirty-five inches in height, to fifty, sixty, or sixty-five inches in breadth: they are expanded in the hand. The process for polishing them is performed by a machine;[118] they are then transported to Madrid, for the purpose of being metallised. It is not uncommon to see tables of bronze, on which mirrors are extended, a hundred and sixty inches in length, and ninety in breadth.”

These tables are described by Bowles: “The largest measures a hundred and forty-five inches in length by eighty-five in breadth, and weighs four hundred and five arrobas. The smallest measures a hundred and twenty inches in length, and seventy-five in breadth, and weighs three hundred and eighty arrobas.”

LXXVI
GLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO

The best account of any is contained in the Nouveau Voyage en Espagne (1789) of Bourgoing. This author wrote: “A côté de cette Fabrique naissante de première nécessité” (i.e. the royal linen factory at La Granja) “il y en a une de luxe qui remonte au regne de Philippe V; c'est une Manufacture de glaces, la seule qu'il y ait en Espagne. On s'étoit d'abord borné à une Verrerie qui subsiste encore, et donne des bouteilles d'une assez bonne qualité, et des verres blancs qu'on y cisele avec assez d'adresse. J'en ai rapporté quelques-uns où l'on a gravé des chiffres, des lettres, et jusqu'à de jolis paysages. Cette Verrerie étoit un acheminement à une entreprise plus brillante. La Manufacture de glaces de Saint Ildephonse est comparable aux plus beaux établissements de ce genre; on en peut voir les dessins dans les Planches de l'Encyclopédie. L'édifice est vaste et très bien distribué; il contient deux fourneaux et une vingtaine de fours où l'on fait refroidir lentement les glaces après les avoir coulées. On y en coule dans toutes les dimensions depuis les carreaux de vitres jusqu'aux plus grands trumeaux. Elles sont moins blanches et peut-être moins bien polies que celles de Venise et de St-Gobin; mais nulle part on n'en a encore coulé d'aussi grandes. L'opération du coulage s'y fait avec beaucoup de précision et d'ensemble. Monseigneur Comte d'Artois eut la curiosité d'y assister; la glace qu'on y coula devant lui avoit, autant que je puis m'en souvenir, cent trente-trois pouces de long, sur soixante-cinq de large, et l'on m'a assuré qu'il y en avoit encore de plus grandes. On les dégrossit à mains d'hommes dans une longue galerie qui est attenante à la Fabrique, et il y a à un quart de lieue une machine que l'eau fait mouvoir, et où on acheve de les polir; on les porte ensuite à Madrid pour les étamer. Le Roi consacre les plus belles à la parure de ses appartements; il en fait des cadeaux aux Cours qui ont des relations intimes avec lui. En 1783, S.M.C. en fit joindre quelques-unes aux présens qu'il envoyoit à la Porte Ottomane, avec laquelle elle venoit de conclure un traité. C'est une idée agréable pour un cosmopolite tolérant, de penser qu'en dépit des préjugés de religion et de politique qui divisoient autrefois les Nations, la main des arts a établi entr'elles un échange de jouissances d'un bout de l'Europe à l'autre, et que les beautés du serrail se mirent dans les glaces coulées à Saint-Ildefonse, tandis que les tapis de Turquie sont foulés par des pieds François. Ce qui sort d'ailleurs de la Manufacture de Saint-Ildefonse est vendu, pour le compte du Roi, à Madrid et dans les provinces; mais on sent bien que ce profit est trop mince pour couvrir les frais d'un établissement aussi considérable qui, le bois excepté, est éloigné de toutes les matières premières qu'il employe, qui est situé fort avant dans l'intérieur des terres, au sein des montagnes, et loin de toute rivière navigable; aussi doit il être compté parmi ces fondations de luxe qui prosperent à l'ombre du Trône, et qui ajoutent à son éclat.”[119]

A few more details are added by Swinburne: “Below the town is the manufactory of plate-glass belonging to the crown, carried on under the direction of Mr Dowling; two hundred and eighty men are employed. The largest plate they have made is one hundred and twenty-six Spanish inches long; the small pieces are sold in looking-glasses all over the kingdom; but I am told the king makes no great profit by it; however, it is a very material point to be able to supply his subjects with a good commodity, and to keep in the country a large sum of money that heretofore went out annually to purchase it from strangers. They also make bottles and drinking-glasses (Plates [lxxvi]., [lxxvii].); and are now busy erecting very spacious new furnaces to enlarge the works. To provide fuel for the fires, they have put the pinewoods under proper regulations and stated falls; twenty-seven mule-loads of fir-wood are consumed every day; and four loads cost the king, including all the expenses of cutting and bringing down from the mountains, about forty reals.”

LXXVII
GLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO

In 1736, the first factory which had been established at San Ildefonso was nearly destroyed by fire; but the damage was repaired, and the factory placed under state control. Its finances were at no time prosperous. In 1762 Charles the Third granted a privilege reserving to it the exclusive sale of glass within a radius of twenty leagues from Madrid and Segovia; but the sales did not improve. In spite of this, the monarch, a few years later, erected a new and costly factory from designs by Villanueva and Real. There were two departments in this ample building. One, for the manufacture of the plainest glass, was directed by a Hanoverian, named Sigismund Brun; and the other, devoted to smaller and more elaborate articles, by Eder, a Swede. “The greater number of the objects made at these important works were of transparent, colourless glass, possessing a marked French style, and were either richly engraved and cut, or gilded, or sometimes (though less often) they were made of coloured and enamelled glass. At this time, too, were manufactured mirrors for the royal palaces, as well as candlesticks and chandeliers of great beauty, following the Venetian method, and embellished with coloured flowers.”[120]

In spite of all these efforts, the works at the dawn of the nineteenth century were in a moribund condition. In 1829 they passed into the hands of private persons, who also failed to make them pay, and subsequently, owing to the ineptitude of Spanish governments and the severity of foreign competition, have definitely closed their doors.

“In Catalonia,” wrote Laborde, towards the year 1800, “are two glass houses; but the glass blown in them is dark, and destitute of lustre. Aragon has four, one at Alfamen, one at Peñalva, one at Utrillas, and one at Jaulin, which is the largest; but the quality of the glass is not superior to that of Catalonia. The glass-house at Utrillas produces both flint and common glass. Glass houses are also established at Pajarejo and at Recuenco in Castile, which manufacture the most beautifully white and transparent glass.”

In 1791 there were six glass-ovens in the kingdom of Valencia, situated at Valencia, Alicante, Salines, Olleria, and Alcira. They turned out 2100 pieces in this year, some of which were exported to Castile and Aragon.[121]

Early in the eighteenth century the glass of Barcelona was praised by Alvarez de Colmenar (“Il s'y fait de belles verreries”), and we know that all through this period her forns de vidre continued to produce good work, including holy-water vessels of uncoloured glass relieved with blue or with the fine white latticinio, the local arruixadors or borrachas, and the typical porrón. The former of these vessels is of small size, and has several spouts. Commonly it is filled with scented water for gallants to sprinkle on girls at dances in the public square. The porrón invariably excites the curiosity of foreigners,[122] and is often thought to be of purely Spanish origin. This is not so. Upon a Roman lampstand in Naples museum is a figure of Bacchus riding on a tiger and “holding in his hand the horn from which the ancients drank, using it as, among some other peoples, do the modern Catalans—that is, not placing the vessel in their mouth, but holding it aloft and thus imbibing it; a method which requires no small amount of practice.” In fact, there is reason to believe that the porrón is derived from a similar vessel in use among the ancient Persians, who poured their liquor from it into the hollow of the hand, and thence imbibed it in the fashion called, in Cataluña and Valencia, al gallet. For just as a certain class of American displays his marksmanship in spitting, so does the Catalan who is accomplished in the art, amuse himself and others by causing the ruby wine to spout from his porrón on to the very apex of his nose, continuing from this point, in the form of a fine and undulating rivulet, over his upper lip and down his throat.

Windows of Spanish houses were seldom glazed until about one hundred years ago. When Bertaut de Rouen travelled here in 1659, this fact impressed him disagreeably. Even in the royal palace at Madrid he found that there were chambers “qui n'ont point du tout de fenestrés, ou qui n'en ont qu'une petite, et d'où le jour ne vient que d'enhaut, le verre estant fort rare en Espagne, et la pluspart des fenestrés des maisons n'ayant pas de vitres.” In 1787, Arthur Young was no less horrified at the glassless condition of the houses in Cataluña. “Reach Sculló; the inn so bad that our guide would not permit us to enter it, so he went to the house of the Curé. A scene followed so new to English eyes, that we could not refrain from laughing very heartily. Not a pane of glass in the whole town, but our reverend host had a chimney in his kitchen; he ran to the river to catch trout; a man brought us some chickens which were put to death on the spot…. This town and its inhabitants are, to the eye, equally wretched, the smoke-holes instead of chimneys, the total want of glass windows—the cheerfulness of which, to the eye, is known only by the want.”

However, as an exception to this doleful rule, the town of Poeblar had “some good houses with glass windows, and we saw a well-dressed young lady gallanted by two monks.”

Footnotes:

[103] “Jam vero et per Gallias Hispaniasque simili modo harenæ temperantur.”—Pliny, Bk. xxxvi; Chap. 66.

The chief centres of glass-making were Tarragona, several towns of Betica (Andalusia), and the Balearic Islands.

[104] The distinction which Riaño attempts to draw between glass and glass paste is unsatisfactory. He remarks, too, that the manufacture of glass may have existed in Spain at an earlier period than the last three centuries, but continues: “The earliest mention of glass-works in Spain will be found in Pliny, who, while explaining the proceedings which were employed in this industry, says that glass was made in a similar manner in France and Spain.”

[105] Rico y Sinobas, Del Vidrio y de sus artifices en España (Almanaque del Museo de la Industria, 1870).

[106] Oliver, Granada y sus monumentos árabes.

[107] The inventory (a.d. 1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque mentions “a white box with four small bottles of Valencia glass containing ointment for the hands.” Other objects specified in this inventory are “a large glass cup, with two lizards for handles, and two more lizards on the cover”; “three glass cocoanuts, partly coloured and with gold blown into them, together with their covers”; and “a large glass cup, of Barcelona, blown with gold.” The value of these cups, if they existed now, would not be less than two or three hundred pounds apiece.

[108] Before this time, however, Aymerich had written, in or about the year 1100, that sixty large windows in Santiago cathedral were closed by glass, which probably was coloured. We also hear of Francisco Socoma, who made or fitted windows of coloured glass at Palma, in the island of Majorca, in 1380, and of Guillermo de Collivella, who, in 1391, fitted at Lerida the glass which had been coloured for the cathedral of that town by Juan de San-Amat.

[109] Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España, p. 282 et seq.

[110] In the monastery of Miraflores, near this city, the queen of Ferdinand the Catholic built, at her expense, a rich pantheon to guard the ashes of her parents and her brother. The coloured glass was made by Simon of Cologne. One day, while visiting Miraflores, Isabella noticed upon the windows of this sanctuary the shield of a gentleman named Martin de Soria. Furious at the liberty thus taken with a fabric of her own, “afferte mihi gladium” she called in Latin to one of her attendants, and, raising the sword, dashed the offending window into a thousand pieces, crying that in that spot she would allow no arms but those of her father.

[111] Señor Lázaro, who has recently made at Madrid windows for León cathedral imitating those of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, remarks that with the sixteenth century the process grew more complicated, patterns composed with pieces of a single colour being replaced by glass containing a variety of tints. He has also discovered the following usage of the older Spanish craftsmen: “By way of furnishing a key to their arrangement, all the pieces used to be marked with the point of a diamond, and this mark indicates the tone the glass requires for such and such a part of the design. The signs most often employed were three, namely X, L, and V, for red, blue and yellow respectively, intermediate tones being shown by combinations of these letters—XL, LV, XV, with “lines of unities” placed before or after to indicate the necessary gradation in the tone.”

[112] This artist painted a series of magnificent windows representing scenes from the life of San Pedro Nolasco, for the convent of La Piedad, at Valencia.

[113] Zarco del Valle, Documentos Inéditos, etc., pp. 339 et seq.

[114] According to Cean (La Catedral de Sevilla), Menandro painted in 1560 the conversion of Saint Paul on a window in the Chapel of Santiago, in 1567 another window with the scene of the Annunciation, over the gate of San Miguel, and in 1569 the companion to it, representing the Visitation, over the Puerta del Bautismo. “In all these windows,” wrote Cean, prejudiced, as was customary in his day, in favour of the strictly classic style, “the drawing, pose, and composition are good, although in the draperies and figures we observe the influence of Germany.”

In Cean's own time—that is, towards the close of the eighteenth century—the coloured windows of Seville Cathedral amounted to ninety-three, five of which were circular, and the rest with the pointed Gothic arch. The dimensions of the latter are twenty-eight feet high by twelve feet broad, and the subjects painted on them include the likenesses of prophets, patriarchs, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, or scenes from the New Testament, such as the rising of Lazarus, Christ driving the merchants from the temple, the Last Supper, and the anointing by Mary Magdalene.

[115] Zarco del Valle, Documentos Inéditos, p. 159

[116] Isidoro Rosell de Torres, Las Vidrieras pintadas en España (published in the Museo Español de Antigüedades).

[117] “Penado. A narrow-mouthed vessel that affords the liquor with scantiness and difficulty.” Connelly and Higgins' Dictionary; a.d. 1798.

[118] This machine was invented by a Catalan named Pedro Fronvila.

[119] Vol. I., pp. [144–147].

[120] Breñosa and Castellarnau; Guide to San Ildefonso (1884), p. 53. Rico y Sinobas observes that in the objects produced at the factory of La Granja, the glass itself is inferior to the engraving or cutting with which it is adorned. This leads him to infer that the foreigners brought over by the kings of Spain to superintend the factory, were cutters and engravers of glass, rather than skilled glass-makers. He also draws attention to the fact that the Spanish monarchs chose these foreign craftsmen from too limited a class, entrusting the most important posts at all the royal factories to Frenchmen who were stated to descend from the old nobility of their native country. In this manner the progress and welfare of the craft itself was sacrificed to an insane prejudice in favour of the aristocratic origin of the craftsman.

[121] Ricord; Noticia de las varias y diferentes Producciones del Reyno de Valencia, etc.: segun el estado que tenían en el año 1791. Valencia, 1793.

[122] “The mode of drinking in this country is singular; they hold a broad-bottom'd glass bottle at arm's length, and let the liquor spout out of a long neck upon their tongue; from what I see, their expertness at this exercise arises from frequent practise; for the Catalans drink often and in large quantities, but as yet I have not seen any of them intoxicated.”—Swinburne.

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Transcriber's Note

The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained.

Inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as a misprint.

The table below lists all corrections applied to the original text.

p. x: LIX → LIX.

p. 23: avec leurs enfans → enfants

p. 32: feu. L'hôte → L'hôtel

p. 33: choses est règlé → réglé

p. 39: fort peuplée autresfois → autrefois

p. 71: pp. 161, 162 → pp. 161, 162.

p. 72: León Cathedral → León Cathedral)

p. 96: peintures variées de bon gôut → goût

p. 98: on the cover. → on the cover.”

p. 104: (see Vol. I. Plate xi.) → (see Vol. I., Plate xi.)

p. 132: appear to be galloping. → galloping.”

p. 139: and “Pisano.” → and “Pisano”.

p. 139: “de relieve.” → “de relieve”.

p. 159: les plus compliqúes → compliqués

p. 159: qu'un bal masqúe → masqué

p. 169: the journal of Bertant → Bertaut

p. 180: Quarte, Vilallonga → Villalonga

p. 183: degree of delicacy. → delicacy.”

p. 188: says Señor Osmo → Osma

p. 188: and another → .

p. 213: style of Capo-di-Monte. → Capo-di-Monte.”

p. 225: in France and Spain. → Spain.”

p. 228: albeit the the → albeit the

p. 236: VESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS → LXXV VESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS

p. 254: GLASS OF THE → LXXVI GLASS OF THE