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.”