It is the district lying inland, some distance to the north of Almeria, that has long, probably from Moorish times, been the centre of the glass industry of the south of Spain;—this is especially true of Pinar de la Vidriera and of Castril de la Peña. At this latter town, Don Juan Riaño tells us, glass has been made from time without memory, and indeed is still made there. ‘A gallery one mile long which exists at the entry of the town from which sand has been extracted for this manufacture, gives an idea of the antiquity of this industry’ (Industrial Arts of Spain, p. 232).
There is only one other centre of the manufacture of glass in Spain that need detain us. This lies in the coast district of Catalonia, above all around Barcelona; for this town we have direct evidence of the manufacture as far back as the early part of the fourteenth century.[[183]] At this time the Catalan mariners were the boldest and the most skilful in the whole Mediterranean, and active rivals of the Venetians in the ports of the Levant. Now there is one variety of enamelled glass formerly attributed to Venice, which, as is at present generally acknowledged, has its origin in the Peninsula: much of it was made at Barcelona. The prevailing note of the enamel on this glass is a very beautiful apple-green, of two tints, one passing into yellow. This colour is sometimes found alone, at others associated with a few touches of other enamels—a lavender blue, for instance, but these other colours are of no great brilliancy. The green much resembles that found on the enamelled glass of the Saracens, where, however, this colour was always sparingly applied. The patterns on the Catalan glass are generally of a formal floral character, often built up of sprigs radiating from a centre. But technically the most noticeable point in this enamel is the method of its application. As in the case of the Saracenic glass, it is laid on with a loaded brush; it lies in thick semi-transparent masses on the surface. As a result we have a rich and jewel-like effect that we may look for in vain in the flat opaque painting that we see on so many European wares. There are several pieces of this glass in the British Museum, but the most beautiful example that I have seen is in the Museo Civico at Venice. This is a little flask lately acquired from the Maglione collection at Naples; the dominant green enamel is here relieved by some yellowish foliage and by red and white birds.
I do not think that any existing example of this green enamelled glass could be safely referred to an earlier date than the end of the fifteenth century. But it is not improbable that the Catalans learned the use of these enamels not from the Venetians, but directly from Saracenic or Jewish glass-workers in some of the ports of the Levant. Such a distant source for this decoration, which is indeed somewhat Oriental in character, I think more probable than a local one in Spain, for we have no evidence that the Moors, when they held the Peninsula, ever practised the art of enamelling glass, nor indeed were the Catalans, after very early times, ever brought much into contact with their Mohammedan neighbours: their main dealings were with the Levant.
That the glass of Barcelona was widely known and held in some repute before the end of the fifteenth century, the following notices go far to prove. As early as 1491—so it is stated in a contemporary Latin manuscript—glass vessels of various shapes, resembling those made at Venice, were exported to Rome from Barcelona. Again, when Philippe le Beau passed through the latter town in 1503, we are told that he went ‘en dehors de la ville veoire ung four ou faict voires de cristallin très beaus’ (Schuermans, Bulletin xxix. p. 138 seq.). Finally, Ferdinand of Aragon, about the same time, is reported to have sent to Queen Isabella a present of 274 pieces of glass manufactured in Barcelona. That this glass must have been possessed of some artistic merit we may infer from the fact that the Queen presented several pieces to the Capella de los Reyes at Granada. These we may perhaps identify with the vasi di vedro seen among the treasures of this chapel a few years later by the Venetian ambassador (Andrea Navagero, Viaggio in Spagna et in Francia). M. Gerspach, I may add, calls attention to an inventory drawn up during the reign of Philip II., in which, under the heading of bidrios de Barcelona, 119 pieces of glass of various forms are catalogued; among other things—and this is a point of great interest—mention is made of some enamelled lamps.
At a much later date, not before the eighteenth century probably, a good deal of opaque white glass, in imitation of porcelain, was made at Barcelona. At South Kensington may be seen a series of quadrangular flasks of this material with bevelled edges, about six inches in height. These flasks—they probably served to hold essences and spirits—are somewhat rudely painted with floral designs in bright primitive colours—red, blue, and yellow. Both in India and Persia we come across examples of glass decorated with ‘painted’ enamels, almost identical in shape and size with these Spanish bottles. Not only these, but some of the sherbet-jugs and coffee-cups of this milky glass, that are still often found in many parts of the East, may well have come from this district. It will be remembered, however, that a very similar ware was made about the same time both in France and at Venice.
Other towns in Catalonia, as Cervelló, Almatret, and above all Mataró, became famous for their glass in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There is more than one record of distinguished foreign princes who were conducted in royal galleys to visit the glass-works of this last town.
M. Schuermans has discovered the names of more than twenty Italians from L’Altare or from Venice, who found their way to Spain, in some cases by way of Flanders. At Lisbon, too, in the seventeenth century, there were many foreign glass-makers, Muranese, Altarists, and Flemings.
At Cadalso, in the province of Toledo, glass-furnaces were at work as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century; indeed they are said at that time to have supplied the whole kingdom of Castile. At these works, at a somewhat later time, the Italian influence became very strong, and no doubt many Muranese or Altarists were employed.
Before the end of the seventeenth century, the general decline so noticeable in all the industries of Spain spread, it would seem, to the glass-works. Workmen were now obtained chiefly from the Low Countries, and in addition much glass was imported by sea from Antwerp. To how low a state the glass industry had fallen at this time may be inferred from the fact that orders for ‘Mexico and the Indies’ had to be executed abroad. In the next century, when Spain had lost her Flemish possessions, their place as a source of glass-ware was taken by France. Philip V., about the year 1720, founded a royal glass manufactory near his summer palace of La Granja de S. Ildefonso, and workmen were gathered together from all sources—there were Germans and Swedes as well as Frenchmen. These works were above all established, in rivalry to St. Gobain (p. [235]), for the preparation of large mirrors of plate-glass, but all sorts of ‘hollow ware’ were also produced there. This later Spanish glass, made to royal order, is, however, utterly devoid of any interest, and it need not detain us.