Volume 2 — POTTERY

ANCIENT

Quantities of ancient common pottery have been, and are continually being found in many parts of Spain. Prehistoric cups, shaped with the fingers and dried and hardened by the sun, are preserved in the Museum of History at Barcelona. They were discovered at Argar. Similar objects have been extracted from the caves of Segóbriga, Lóbrega in Old Castile, and El Tesoro in the province of Málaga. Those which were found at Segóbriga are divided by Capelle into six groups, one of which includes a vessel resembling the ordinary Spanish pitcher of to-day.

Villa-amil y Castro has described in the Museo Español de Antigüedades pieces of prehistoric sun-dried ware discovered in Galicia, roughly decorated with patterns imprinted by the finger. In other instances a double spiral has been described with a pointed instrument about the vessel's neck. Similar fragments have been found by Góngora in Andalusia. Celtic pottery was found in 1862 by Captain Brome on Windmill Hill at Gibraltar, in 1866 by M. Lartet in the caves of Torrecilla de Cameros, and by Casiano de Prado in a cave near Pedraza, as well as at Navares de Ayuso and elsewhere. In central Spain, vessels of the Celtiberian era have been found in tombs at Prádena, and pieces of red Saguntine ware, with dark red decoration, at Otero de Herreros, close to vestiges of a Roman mine. Lecea y García describes in his work on Old Segovian Industries a Celtiberian plate of reddish clay covered with black varnish, which was dug up some years ago in a garden at that town. This plate, measuring no less than four feet in diameter, and containing two inscriptions in characters believed to be Celtiberian, as well as the figure of a warrior armed with a lance and three javelins, was submitted to Heiss, who wrote of it in the Gazette Archéologique and pronounced it to be genuine. I have not seen the plate in question. I have, however, met with cleverly executed forgeries, also varnished black, of primitive Spanish pottery.

In 1899 quantities of Celtic ware, believed to date from the time of the Phœnicians, or even earlier, were unearthed by M. Bonsor from tumuli in the Guadalquivir valley. These objects are ornamented in relief with complicated patterns paler than the ground, obtained by using lighter-coloured clay. “As similar Celtic pottery has been found in Portugal, it will be understood that the Celtic influence, having crossed the Pyrenees, reached the south by the western seaboard. It will thus be seen that long before the arrival of the Romans a relatively high degree of civilisation had been reached at least in the south of Spain.”[60]

In the summer of 1905 two German archæologists, Messrs. Schulten and Könen, who had obtained permission from the Spanish Government to explore the site of old Numancia, filled four large cases with the Celtiberian pottery they extracted from the ruins. These cases were forwarded to the University of Göttingen. I understand, however, that they have been returned, or are to be returned immediately, to Spain.

Long before the Christian era, Greek colonies existed on the Spanish coast at Rhodas, Denia, Emporium (Ampurias), Saguntum (Murviedro), and elsewhere. Pottery of good design and workmanship was manufactured at these towns, and strongly influenced native art. Bowls and other objects showing such an influence were discovered by M. Bonsor in his recent excavations. Another powerful influence was that of Rome. Roman potteries existed in the suburb of Seville called Triana, and in the provinces of Cáceres and Badajoz. Mérida was also an important centre of this industry, and vessels which were used in sacred rites, such as the aquiminarium, the prefericulum, the simpulum, and the urnula, were discovered here not long ago. The name “Saguntine ware” was given by the Romans to a kind of pottery which seems to have been made along the Spanish littoral extending southward from Saguntum. Fragments of this pottery, which closely resembles the Arezzo ware,[61] are found in shoals upon the sites of Roman towns, particularly Tarragona. These barros saguntinos, or (as Hübner prefers to call them) barros tarraconenses, have been divided into four classes, namely, white, grey, red (covered with a dark red varnish),[62] and yellow striped with red. This ware is commonly adorned with garlands, animals, hunting-scenes, divinities, games, or religious ceremonies, and also bears, in nearly every case, the potter's name or mark; e.g. ALBINVS F (“Albinus fecit”) or OF. ALBIN (“officina Albini”). More than two hundred marks have been discovered which were used by potters of Ampurias alone.

There seems to be no doubt that Saguntum and Emporium were principal centres of this industry, and possibly, since these towns were old Greek settlements, the barros saguntinos were of Grecian origin. Pella y Forgas, describing in his History of the Ampurdan the fine red ware of this locality, says that parts of the decoration were fashioned on the wheel, others directly by the potter's hand, and others from a mould, while the ornament of dotted lines was made by the wheeled roulette.

Among the commoner objects dating from this time are amphoræ and small earthen lamps (Pl. xlvii.). These lamps have been discovered in great numbers, and, owing to the dryness of the Spanish soil, in excellent preservation. They measure about the size of the hand, and have two holes, one in the spout or beak, to hold the wick, and the other at the top, for pouring in the oil. The top, which as a rule is slightly concave, is often ornamented with devices in relief, such as a chariot and its driver, or the emblem of a deity.

XLVII AMPHORAIC VASES AND OTHER POTTERY (Museum of Tarragona)

The typical amphora was a long, narrow vessel (usually of earthenware; less frequently of brass or glass), with an elongated handle at either side of the neck, and tapering nearly to a point. It served for storing honey, oil, or wine, and in order to keep it upright the pointed lower end was stuck into the soil, or rested on a perforated wooden stand. In the spring of 1893 some fishermen drew up in their nets, just off the coast of Alicante, three large intact amphoræ thickly cased with shells, and sold them for eight dollars each. Other fine amphoræ, now in the collection of the Marquis of Cerralbo, were washed upon the beach at Torrevieja, and many more are in museums. Vessels of this kind are known to have been made at Rhodas (Rosas) and Saguntum, and their use continued in Spain until the downfall of the second empire.

HISPANO-MORESQUE NON-LUSTRED POTTERY

The statements of Saint Isidore, confirmed by one or two discoveries in southern Spain, prove that the pottery in use among the Visigoths was principally Roman. Probably in this, as in so many of her arts, the Moorish conquest brought about a radical and rapid change. Remains of pottery dating from this period are extremely rare. The provincial museum of Granada contains some bowls and plates, all more or less imperfect, which are ascribed by experts to about the year 1000. These objects, which were dug up in 1878 on the slopes of the Sierra Elvira, a few miles from Granada, are coloured black and green upon a white or whitish ground. The most important is a dish which measures fourteen inches in diameter, and is decorated with a falcon on a horse's back (Plate xlviii.).[63] All of this pottery shows the double influence of Byzantium and the East. Among the designs upon the other pieces are hares and stags surrounded by a bordering of primitive arabesques. Riaño remarks that “it is almost impossible to assert whether this pottery was made in or imported into Spain.” Nevertheless, Persians are stated to have settled in this region early in the days of Muslim rule, while these dilapidated specimens of ancient ware are greatly similar in colouring and substance to the common dishes and barreños which are still produced throughout the province of Granada.

Moorish potteries producing lustred or non-lustred ware existed from an early date at Málaga, Valencia, Toledo, Calatayud, Murviedro, Murcia, and Barcelona. Another centre of this craft was probably Granada; for though she is not mentioned in this sense by any of the Moorish authors, the late Señor Contreras discovered here the vestiges of two ancient potteries, while one of the old entrances was known as Bab Alfajjarin, or “the potters' gate.”

XLVIII DISH (About A.D. 1000. Museum of Granada)

The Ordinances of Granada contain provisions which were evidently copied from the Spanish Moors, relating to the almadraveros or tilemakers, the tinajeros or makers of tinajas, and the olleros or potters generally. The Ordinances which concern the tilemakers are dated between 1528 and 1540. The restrictions imposed upon these craftsmen were irksome, foolish, and unnecessary. All bricks and tiles were to be stamped in three places with the city mark, and were only permitted to be made between the first of April and the thirty-first of October in each year, “since what is made at other seasons is not good or perfect, owing to the rain, and cold, and frost.”

Another Ordinance, illustrating the lawlessness prevailing at Granada in the times succeeding the reconquest, complains that “many persons, including labourers and hodmen, go forth into the roads and streets, and seize the tiles and bricks by violence from those who are conveying them, and bear them to their houses, or to the work which they are paid to do.”

A picturesque, though cheap and unluxurious, vessel of a thoroughly eastern character, and which was very largely manufactured by the Spanish Moors, is the terra-cotta tinaja or gigantic jar for storing wine, or olive oil, or grain (Plate xlix.). The use of these receptacles extended through the whole Peninsula, and has continued undiminished to this day. The principal centres of tinaja-making were Toledo, Seville, and Granada. The Ordinances of the latter town embody Moorish rules relating to this branch of pottery. These laws, revived in 1526, provide that all tinajas must contain two kinds of earth, one red, the other white, thoroughly compounded in a trough of water. Before the potter removes the clay from the trough, he must call the city supervisor or veedor to look into the quality and mixing of the mass. The vessel as it leaves the oven must be white; otherwise, even although it have no flaw, the inspector is to break it. The potter is forbidden to coat his tinajas with a glaze composed of eggs, blood, chalk, and other strange ingredients; nor may he fire the glaze with torches, “because the smell of the smoke clings to the tinaja, and the wine or stum deposited therein grows redolent of it, and it stays within the jar perpetually.”

XLIX HISPANO-MORESQUE TINAJA

Owing doubtless to their plain, domestic purpose and their trifling market cost, early tinajas are not often met with. A fine example in excellent preservation is at South Kensington, and is described by Riaño as “a wine jar, amphora-shaped, and ornamented with an incised pattern of vine leaves, and stamped diaper of a Gothic character.” Several good tinajas have been discovered of late years at Seville. Gestoso mentions six, five of which are glazed. The first of these was found in 1893, and has a bright green glaze upon a ground of reddish earth. Both handles and nearly all the neck are wanting. The decoration consists of various bands or fajas round the body of the jar, a series of archways, another of leaves, and a central band of stars, three deep, strongly imprinted from a mould. In every ninth arch are stamped symbolic hands, such as we see upon the Gate of Justice of the Alhambra.

The second tinaja is similar to the one just mentioned, except that it has the neck. It was discovered in 1895, and is now in Seville museum.

The third tinaja is also in this museum, and was discovered in 1901. It is in a very poor condition, and Gestoso believes that it was originally covered with a honey-coloured glaze.

The fourth tinaja was found in a drain, in the same year as the preceding one, and is inscribed with words, including Blessing and Felicity, in Cufic characters. Gestoso is unable to decide whether this vessel was made at Seville or elsewhere.

The fifth tinaja is in the collection of Don José Morón, and possesses greater interest than the others, both because it is in excellent condition, and also because the decoration is entirely in the Spanish-Christian style, without a trace of Saracenic ornament. Small Gothic-looking shields surround the body of this vessel, which is stamped with pomegranates, and with the arms and emblems of the Ponce de León and other families. Between each pair of shields is an oval-shaped medallion containing human figures.

The sixth tinaja is unglazed. It was found in June of 1893, and is adorned with repetitions of the words Prosperity and Blessing, as well as with a series of deer and other animals in the act of running; some of them with birds upon their backs. These designs are very uncommon, and Gestoso has seen no other tinaja, proceeding from this region, similarly decorated.

Tinajas are still made in large quantities at Toboso, Lucena, Colmenar de Oreja, and other Spanish towns and villages.

Other large objects of a thoroughly oriental character were earthenware glazed brocales or brims of wells, which, like the tinajas, were largely manufactured at Seville and Toledo. Specimens of these brocales exist in the museums of Toledo and Cordova. Riaño describes one which is at South Kensington. “It was bought at Toledo for three guineas at a shoemaker's shop. It is made of glazed white and green earthenware, with ornamental Cufic characters in high relief all round, which appear to be of the fourteenth century. The inscription, which is repeated, is imperfect, and all that I can decipher are the words ‘the power, the excellence, and the peace.’”

Gestoso describes two brocales and the fragments of a third. All these objects were found at Seville. The two which are intact, or nearly so, are cylindrical, and of a white ware. One of them has a simple leaf decoration, and seems to have been covered with a green glaze. The other, which was discovered in 1894, is surrounded by a triple band of inscription in African characters which are illegible.

Gestoso also describes some interesting baptismal fonts, a class of object which he pronounces to have been the most important of all that were produced in the potteries of Triana, by reason both of their large dimensions and of their elaborate ornamentation. He states that three methods were employed to decorate these fonts. The first consisted in attaching to their surface small moulded plates which bore the likeness of a saint, flowers, monograms, or other devices. By the second method the decoration was moulded directly on the font; while the third method consisted in a combination of the other two.

Splendid examples of these Spanish fonts exist in various churches of Andalusia and in private collections. One of the finest is in the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, at Laguna, Tenerife. It is suggested by Gestoso that this pila of Laguna was made at Seville and sent to the Canaries in the year 1479, when orders were issued by Ferdinand and Isabella for the completion of the monasteries in those islands.

Pilas were also manufactured at Toledo, although Gestoso says that the workmanship of those produced at Seville was in every way superior. Nevertheless, he has only found the maker's name upon a single font, which is inscribed with that of Juan Sanchez Vachero, and is now preserved in the church of San Pedro at Carmona. Another remarkable pila is that of the hospital of San Lázaro at Seville.

In course of time the Spanish Church forbade the use of pilas made of glazed earthenware, and ordered their substitution by fonts of stone or marble. One of these dispositions, included among the Constituciones Sinodales of the bishopric of Málaga, and dated 1671, is quoted by Gestoso. It enacts that the pila be of stone and not of earthenware, and that if any of this latter class remain, they are to be “consumed” (i.e. destroyed) within two months.

Returning to the Ordinances of Granada, those which concern the potters or olleros generally are dated 1530, and inform us of the price of glazed and unglazed articles in common use, such as ollas or pots (with and without glaze), cazuelas or earthen vessels for cooking meat, plates of many colours and dimensions, jarros (jugs), alcuzas (vials), cantaros castellanos (Castilian water-pitchers), cantaros moriscos (Moorish water-pitchers[64]), morteros (mortars), lebrillos (earthen tubs), candiles (lamps with a green, white or yellow glaze), orzas (gally pots), botijas (narrow-necked jars), and salseras (saucers).

The shape and colouring of many of these common articles have been continued till to-day, especially in Andalusia. I reproduce a photograph of some (Plate l.), in which the influence of the East is unmistakable. The smaller of the two unglazed jars is used for carrying and cooling water, and is made at Loja. The other, which is often used for storing honey, is from Guadalajara. The spherical vessel is a kind of bottle for aguardiente. It is glazed a brightish green, and is made in various parts of Andalusia, as are the gourd-shaped calabazas, which have a yellow glaze. The smallest vessel, or that which has a funnel-shaped and bulging mouth, is coated with a coarse metallic glaze coloured in white and blue, and proceeds from Granada.

L COARSE SPANISH POTTERY (Modern)

So is the influence of the Spanish Moors, linking the present intimately to the past, and handed down by early craftsmen to the moderns, and from Mussulmans to Christian Spaniards, maintained and kept alive, not only by the city ordinances I have quoted, but also by the more occult yet no less permanent and cogent force of local and unchronicled tradition. In the historic quarter of Granada which is called the Albaycin, survive a few alfarerías to this hour (Plate lxix.). Here, on the potter's wheel or ranged about his yard, may yet be seen the red Granada earth that is believed to have inspired the vase of the Alhambra, applied to-day to common crockery that notwithstanding has a subtle, unfamiliar charm. And towards the time of sundown, when the master turns indoors to supper and his workmen have gone home, when the last of the red light is colouring the ancient city wall until it too looks like a mammoth monument of the potter's art of old Granada, it is a strange experience to wander through these desolate yards, among the files of ruddy Granadino ware kindling with vivid memories of the vanished Mussulmans of Spain, and bringing back to us that spirited old poet of the East who also sang of pottery:—

MOSAIC-WORK AND TILES

The art of colouring and glazing earthenware was practised by various peoples of the ancient eastern world, and passed, in course of time, through Egypt to Phœnicia, Greece, and Rome, and, later still, to Mussulman peoples of north-western Africa.

Glazed earthenware was possibly produced in Roman Spain, although the specimens of it which have been discovered are singularly and, indeed, significantly few. Their colour is commonly green or lightish yellow. Gestoso makes particular mention of a small jar now preserved in the museum of Seville, describing it as “of an ordinary shape, but finely made.” He admits, however, that no trace of glaze exists in any of the broken Visigothic vessels (copied, as Saint Isidore tells us, from the Roman-Spanish pottery) that were found some years ago among the ruins of Italica. Thus it is not decided whether the Spanish potters learned to glaze, or whether this development of their craft remained familiar to the Spaniards of that period through imported objects merely.

As with glazed earthenware, the origin of mosaic must be looked for in the East. Greece, who had doubtless borrowed it from Egypt, communicated it to Rome at least two centuries before the Christian era, and from this time the Romans used it freely in the decoration of their buildings. The Greek mosaic was composed exclusively of stone. The Romans modified this usage by the introduction of diminutive cubes of clay, painted and baked like porcelain; and later, in the reign of Claudius, dyed these cubes with various colours.

Roman mosaic-work (commonly in the tessellated style and not the opus sectile) has been unearthed in many parts of the Peninsula. Such are the two “mosaics of the Muses,” discovered at Italica on December 12th, 1799, and June 12th, 1839;[65] other mosaics, to the number of some thirty, discovered from time to time among the same ruins; another, discovered at Majorca in 1833; that of the Calle Batitales at Lugo (the Roman Lucus Augusti), discovered in 1842; those of Palencia, Gerona, Merida, Milla del Rio (near León), Rielves (near Toledo), Duratón, Aguilafuente, and Paradinas (near Segovia), and Carabanchel, three miles from Madrid. The mosaic found at Lugo is believed to have formed part of a temple dedicated to Diana. The decoration is partly geometrical, and consists of the head of a man between two dolphins, with other fishes swimming along the border. Laborde describes another mosaic which existed, early in the nineteenth century, in a hall of the archbishop's palace at Valencia. “The pavement of this hall demands particular attention; it is formed of antique pavements, discovered in the month of February, 1777, three hundred paces north-east of the town of Puch, between Valencia and Murviedro; some were entire, others were only fragments. They were separated with care, and placed on the floor of this hall, where they are carefully preserved. They are different mosaics, formed by little stones of three or four lines in diameter, curiously enchased. They are distributed into seven squares in each of which medallions and divers designs have been drawn: their compartments are of blue on a white ground. We observe in one of these squares an imitation of the pavement of Bacchus, discovered at Murviedro, and of which there remained but very few vestiges; it was copied in a drawing-book which a priest of this town had preserved; it is executed with such art and exactness, that no difference can be observed between this modern work and that of the Romans. In another we see Neptune seated in a car, in one hand holding a whip, and in the other a trident and the reins of the horses by which his car is drawn: these appear to be galloping.”

“In the same hall are also seen other pavements, of which only fragments could be preserved. Some serve for borders and ornaments to the preceding pavements. On these are represented a tiger, fishes, birds, houses, flowers, and garlands, well executed. There are particularly five stuck on wood and shut up in a closet; on these are birds, fruits, and flowers, figured in different colours, the execution of which is very curious; they are perhaps the most precious of the whole.”

The same author says elsewhere: “In digging to make a road from Valencia to Murviedro in 1755, at the entrance of the latter town a mosaic pavement was discovered; it was entire, and of such beauty that it was thought worthy of preservation. Ferdinand the Sixth caused it to be surrounded with walls; but the king's intentions were not properly fulfilled; the gates were suffered to remain open, and every one carried away some part of the pavement, which consequently soon became despoiled; it was rectangular, and measured twenty-four feet by fourteen. There are still some fragments of it in several houses at Murviedro. A priest of that town, Don Diego Puch, an antiquarian, took a drawing of it, which he afterwards had painted at Valencia on the tiles fabricated there, and paved an apartment of his house with them. It was likewise copied with the greatest exactness, with small stones perfectly similar, in an apartment of the library belonging to the archiepiscopal palace, as we have already stated.”

Swinburne also mentions a mosaic pavement which he saw at Barcelona, upon the site of what he believed to have been a temple of Neptune. In it were represented “two large green figures of tritons, holding a shell in each hand; between them a sea-horse, and on the sides a serpent and a dolphin.”

In October of 1901 a very important and beautiful mosaic was discovered at Italica. It is known as “the mosaic of Bacchus,” the worship of which deity, says Señor Quintero, was probably general in Andalusia, owing to her wealth of vines. This mosaic was found at a depth of six feet six inches below the surface of the soil, and measures twenty-one feet square. It is believed to have formed the pavement of a Roman dining-chamber.

Mosaic in the manner of the Greeks and Romans seems in Spain to have disappeared with the Visigoths. That it was known to these is told us by Saint Isidore:—“Pavimenta originem apud graecos habent elaboratae arte picturae, litostrata parvulis crustis ac tesselis tinctis in varios colores.”[66]

LI DOOR OF THE MIHRAB (Showing mosaic-work. Cordova Cathedral)

It is impossible to affirm with any confidence that glazed earthenware, whether in the form of tiles or other objects, was manufactured by the Spanish Moors during the Cordovese Caliphate, or the period of the kinglings of Taifa. No trace of it has been discovered among the scanty ruins of Medina Az-zahará[67] and Az-zahira—ancient palaces of Cordova—or in the marvellous mosque. We know, however, that towards the seventh century the Arabs borrowed from Byzantium the mosaic-work of tessons known as psephosis fsefysa, and this, or something similar, was used, though probably to a small extent, among the Muslims of the Spanish Caliphate. Although, towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the historian Aben-Said, a native of Granada, recorded that in Al-Andalus “is made a kind of mofassass which is called in the East alfoseifesa,” remains of this elaborate product only exist to-day at Cordova, where patches may yet be seen lining the dome of the mirhab in the vast aljama (Plate li.). The mosaic in question is stated to have been a gift from the Byzantine emperor to the sultan Al-Hakem, and was set in place by a skilled workman, a Greek, who, like the offering itself, proceeded from Constantinople.

During his stay at Cordova this Greek was helped by certain of the Sultan's slaves, who thus acquired the secrets of the craft, and practised it thereafter.[68]

Rodrigo Amador de los Rios contends, however, that this decoration is in no sense a true mosaic, but just a tempera painting executed on the wall and overlaid with cubes of glass. In any case, no other specimen of such work has been discovered in any part of the Peninsula.

By the time of the Almohade invasion or very shortly after—that is, towards the twelfth century,—the Spanish Moors had grown acquainted with glazed earthenware. Indeed, the Almohades are believed by some authorities to have actually introduced it. Gestoso, on the contrary, suggests that Spain may have transmitted it to Africa. However this may be, the Almohades used it largely in the decoration of their homes and public buildings in Andalusia; first as aliceres or bands composed of smallish pieces running round a room, and subsequently in the more effective and more useful form of azulejos proper. The Spanish Moors employed the word almofassass to designate both aliceres and azulejos. Nevertheless, the two were not identical, although Riaño takes them to be so. He says: “The earliest tiles or azulejos made in Spain are composed of small pieces let into the wall, forming geometrical patterns.” These, in fact, were aliceres. It is not so easy to define an azulejo. We read in Aben-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari: “There is another kind of work employed for paving houses. It is called azzulechí and resembles mofassass. It has wonderful colouring, and replaces the coloured marble used by the people of the East to decorate their chambers.”

This definition is not completely clear. Those of the Christian-Spanish writers are not more satisfactory. Covarrubias calls these objects “small bricks, square and of other shapes, used for lining chambers in the mansions of the wealthy, or in garden paths.” Nebrija calls them tessela pavimenticia, adding that they bear the name of azulejos because the earliest ones were of a blue colour—a statement which Dozy supports by instancing the Persian-Arabic zaward or “blue stone.”

Gestoso resolves the question sufficiently for our purpose by showing that the term azulejo is usually applied to square tiles of a largish size, the length of whose sides varies between eleven centimetres and eighteen centimetres, aliceres being properly the smaller strips or pieces (technically known as cintas or verduguillos) used in a bordering or frieze. Other decorative pieces of small dimensions, invented in the fifteenth century, were called olambres or olambrillas, and served to lend variety to the red or yellow brickwork of a pavement or a floor.

The production of azulejos in Spain may thus be traced to as far back as the twelfth century. By far the most important centre of the craft was Seville. Here, from the twelfth until the fourteenth century, was made the glazed and decorative tiling which consisted of small pieces of monochrome earthenware—black, white, green, blue, or yellow—cut one by one, and pieced together in the manner of a true mosaic. This process, says Gestoso, was lengthy, difficult, and dear. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the same mosaic would often take the form of a series of narrow, white, ribbon-like strips, with coloured interspaces. Specimens of this “ribbon-work tiling” exist to-day in the Patio de Las Doncellas of the Alcázar (Plate lii.). Towards the sixteenth century the Sevillano potters discovered a simpler way of making effective and artistic azulejos, which they called the cuerda seca process. This novel method consisted in pressing a wood or metal mould upon the unbaked tile, in such a manner that the outline of the pattern remained in slight relief. This outline was next brushed over with a mixture of manganese and grease, which turns, in baking, very nearly black. The body of the pattern was then filled in with the various colours, which the greasy line completely separated, and thus prepared, the tile was rendered permanent by firing.

LII MOSAIC OF THE PATIO DE LAS DONCELLAS (Alcázar of Seville)

This process, in which the patterns are nearly always geometrical, remained in general use until about the year 1550, when it began to be superseded by two others, known respectively as the processes of “cuenca” and “Pisano”.

The cuenca tile was simple and of excellent effect. The pattern, stamped from a metal mould, remained in bas-relief,—a characteristic which caused these objects to be also known as azulejos “de relieve”. The shelving border of each hollow stamped into the tile thus formed a kind of natural barrier which kept the colour there deposited from mingling with its neighbours. When of a larger size, and joined in pairs to form between each two a single motive (ladrillo por tabla), these azulejos were often employed for decorating roofs and ceilings.

The tiles which bear the name of their inventor, Francesco Niculoso Pisano the Italian, who lived and worked for many years at Seville, date from about the same time as the “cuenca” azulejos. In the case of the Pisano tile, there is no indentation caused by the imprint of a mould, the surface being merely coated with a monochrome glaze, painted upon and fired, the decoration thus remaining flat all over. Commonly the ground is white or yellow, with the colour of the pattern shaded blue, or black, or deepish purple. This process, which lent itself to most elaborate and effective schemes of ornament, remained in vogue until the eighteenth century, and was practised, not only by Pisano himself, but by a long succession of his pupils, followers, and imitators.

LIII ANDALUSIAN NON-LUSTRED WARE (A.D. 1480–1495. Osma Collection)

Such were the processes in use among the azulejo-makers of old Seville. Specimens of their craftsmanship which yet survive and illustrate the various styles and epochs may be thus enumerated:—

(1) Mosaic tile-work, such as appears in Seville at the time of the Almohade invasion. A fragment of this kind of work forms part of the collection of Señor Osma, and proceeds from the church of San Andrés. Tiles and smaller pieces of mosaic-work, coloured in malachite green and white, were also found in 1899 and 1900, in the upper walls of the renowned Torre del Oro, or “Golden Tower,” erected in the year 1220, and which is popularly thought to derive its venerable title from the sparkle of the sun upon its azulejos. Another piece of primitive mosaic, measuring rather less than a yard square, and containing star-shaped geometrical devices, was found in 1890 beneath the floor of the cathedral; while mosaics of a later age, including the more elaborate lacería patterns that resemble ribbon, are preserved in the Patio de las Doncellas of the Alcázar, in the Casa de Olea, and in the parish churches of San Estéban, San Gil, and Omnium Sanctorum.

(2) A small group of curious tiles, believed to be anterior to the reign of Pedro the First, has come to light some years ago, in the churches of San Andrés and Santa Marina, and in the Claustro del Lagarto of the cathedral. Those of San Andrés are of white earthenware, glazed in the same colour and stamped from a mould with the figures of two wolves in fairly bold relief (see tailpiece to this chapter). Traces of a glaze of malachite green are on the bodies of these wolves. The azulejos of the church of Santa Marina, also discovered recently, are examined by Señor Osma in his pamphlet Azulejos sevillanos del siglo xiii (Madrid, 1902). They measure about three and a half inches square, and bear devices of a castle and an eagle, stamped in the diagonal direction of the tile, showing that this was fixed upon the wall in lozenge fashion. The tiles are bathed upon their surface with what is termed by Osma “the semi-transparent, caramel-coloured glaze peculiar to the pottery of Moorish Spain.”[69] Upon this ground is stamped the decoration,—the eagles in the blackish purple of baked manganese, the castles without additional colour, so as to be distinguished only by their outline from the yellowish surface of the tile.

The azulejos of the Claustro del Lagarto of the cathedral are three in number, and were found in 1888. Two of them are stamped with a castle of a single tower described within a shield, and the third with a Greek cross. These are considered by Osma to be the only tiles existing at this moment which date from the latter third of the thirteenth century. In fact, he places their manufacture between the years 1252 and 1269.

LIV CUENCA TILES (Alcázar of Seville)

(3) Cuerda seca tiles. Handsome zocalos or dadoes of these tiles are in the Casa de los Pinelos, and in the chapels of the palaces of the Dukes of Alba and Medinaceli. Gestoso attributes them to the end of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth. Detached cuerda seca tiles are preserved in the municipal museum of archæology, while a fine pair (Plate liii.) of this class of azulejos belongs to Señor Osma, who considers they were made between 1480 and 1495. They are thus coeval with the no less interesting dish of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, of which a reproduction is given opposite page 190.

(4) Cuenca tiles. Quantities of these, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, may yet be seen in many parts of Seville; for instance, in her churches or her convents, in her superb Alcázar, or in the mansions of her old nobility. Probably the most remarkable of all are those in the gardens of the Alcázar, and lining the walls of the Pavilion of Charles the Fifth. The devices on these polychrome azulejos (16th century; Plate liv.) are very numerous, including men and animals, centaurs and other monsters, the Pillars of Hercules, and imitations of elaborate dress fabrics.

(5) Pisano tiles. Although some facts have been unearthed concerning the Italian Francesco Niculoso Pisano, we do not know precisely in what year he came to Seville, or in what year he died. Davillier thought it probable that he had studied at Faenza or at Caffagiolo. At all events, it was Pisano who broadly launched the art of the Sevillian potters on the stream of the Renaissance.[70] I have stated that the tiles which bear his name are painted on a white or yellow ground. Consequently their surface is flat, without the ridges and depressions of the cuenca or the cuerda seca methods. We find Pisano tiles applied to various objects, such as tombs, altars, friezes, and archivolts. This artist, says Gestoso, further introduced the use of two new colours,—violet and rose. Several of his best productions are still intact, including the doorway of the church of the monastery of Santa Paula (in which he was assisted by a Spanish master, Pedro Millan), and the altar of the Catholic Sovereigns in the Alcázar. Both these masterpieces were executed in the year 1504, and bear Pisano's signature. The doorway of Santa Paula is described by Gestoso as consisting of a single body of masonry, distinct from that of the building itself, though resting against it, and constructed of bricks of uniform size, which show us, by their perfect symmetry, how skilful were the masons of that time, with whom the Moorish craftsmanship was yet a living power. The doorway is formed by a series of concentric Gothic arches resting on slender pillars. The space which forms the outer archivolt is most remarkable. Upon a ground of azulejos which copy the colour of the brickwork, we see a number of Plateresque designs of exquisite beauty, painted in white and blue, with occasional touches of other colours. Among the devices are chimeras, war-trophies, volutes, chaplets, parapegms, antelopes, masks, and others which are characteristic of the Florentine Renaissance. Upon this ground, and enclosed by circular garlands in high relief, consisting of polychrome fruits and flowers, are seven medallions containing figures of male and female saints, except the one which is upon the keystone, and which represents the birth of Christ. In this medallion the figures are enamelled in white upon a cobalt-blue ground, recalling, as also do the garlands, the work of the celebrated della Robbia.[71] In the rest of the medallions the figures are glazed in brilliant colours. In the three medallions upon the left, beginning with the lowest one, we see, upon the first, Saint Helen; upon the second, two saints in monkish dress; and upon the third, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. On the medallions of the other side are another saint dressed as a monk, San Cosmé, San Damián, and San Roque. The spaces on either side of the archivolt are covered with tiles which represent a landscape. In each of the upper angles is an angel holding a large tablet with IHS in ornamental Gothic character upon a black ground. These letters, and also the angels and the frames of the tablets, are enamelled in gold. Beneath each tablet is an angel standing with extended wings upon a bracket of lustred earthenware, and holding an open book. The brickwork of the door is closed by a plain impost supporting a small battlement covered with cuenca tiles, and crowned with a cornice of flamboyant ornaments alternating with the heads of cherubs glazed in white, and with a white marble cross in the centre. The tympanum is embellished by a superb shield carved in high relief upon white marble with the arms of Castile, León, Aragon, and Sicily, surmounted by a royal crown and the eagle with the nimbus. Beside this shield are two smaller ones of azulejos painted with the yoke and sheaf of arrows, and the motto TĀTO MŌTA. The ground on which are executed these three shields occupies the whole tympanum, and is covered with Plateresque devices including two tablets, on one of which we read the letters S.P.Q.R., and on the other, PISANO. Above the first of these tablets is another of an oval shape, bearing the word NICULOSO. Lastly, at the base of the archivolt, and on the left-hand side of the spectator, is a very small rectangular tablet with this inscription:—

NICVLOSO FRANCISCO-I- TALIANO-MEF ECIT INELAGNO DEI · 154 ·

The altar in the Alcázar of the same city, and which is known as that of the Catholic Sovereigns (Plate lv.), is entirely covered with “Pisano” azulejos measuring sixteen centimetres square. Imbedded in the centre is a picture, also of painted tiles, representing the visit of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth. This picture measures five feet in height by three feet eight inches in breadth. Beneath it is the figure of a patriarch resting his head upon his hand. Boughs with large flowers issue from his breast, and among the flowers are half-length figures of the prophets, together with those of Jesus and the Virgin, the whole of this decoration forming a frame to the central picture. The rest of the altar is profusely decorated with designs in the Renaissance style, consisting of vases, animals, genii, and the emblems of Ferdinand and Isabella. In the centre of the tiling which forms the altar-front is a circular picture made of azulejos surrounded by a garland of fruits and laurel leaves, and representing the Annunciation, garland and picture being supported by two monsters with the tails of dragons and the upper parts of women. Large flaming torches rest between the out-stretched arms of the monsters, and round about or springing from them are flowers, animals, cornucopias, and other decoration. The entire retablo is painted lightish blue and white upon a yellow ground, except the larger picture and its decorative border, which is of a deeper blue. A small tablet beneath the Virgin's feet contains the words NICULOSO FRANCESCO ITALIANO ME FECIT, and on the pilaster represented on the left hand of the same picture is added the date, 1504. As Gestoso, Davillier, and others have remarked, it is evident that while the rest of the altar is pure Renaissance-Plateresque, the pictures copied on the tiles are of a northern school. Probably they were designed for Niculoso by one of the various German or Flemish masters who at that time were resident in Seville.

LV ALTAR OF THE CATHOLIC SOVEREIGNS (Alcázar of Seville)

Another altar which was formerly in the same palace, but which has disappeared, was also painted by this craftsman. It was described by Cean Bermudez as containing scenes from the life of the Virgin, the Trinity, and the two Saints John, and bore the same date as the altar which is yet existing, namely, 1504.

Among the other works of Niculoso are the altar of the church of Tentudia, the tomb of Iñigo Lopez in the church of Santa Ana in the quarter of Triana, and a tile-picture representing, similarly to the one which forms the centre of the altar in the Alcázar, the Virgin's visit to Saint Elizabeth. This picture formerly belonged to the kings of Portugal, and is now in the museum of Amsterdam.[72]

Such were the decorative azulejos which made the potteries of Seville famous throughout Europe, and which are known to have been exported to Italy, Portugal, and even England.[73] The names of several hundred mediæval and post-mediæval makers of these Seville tiles have been exhumed and published by Gestoso.

The general title of the Spanish potter was ollero, a comprehensive term which reaches from the most ambitious azulejero to the maker of the meanest kitchen-ware. The olleros of older Seville produced for centuries, not only glazed and coloured tiling by the processes already indicated, but countless other objects such as brims of wells, apothecary's jars, baptismal fonts, and dishes of every shape and size. They used a general mark (the tower of the Giralda) to stamp their pottery; but private marks are nearly always absent. The facts that have appeared in recent years concerning these artificers are seldom interesting. The mere mention of a name is meaningless, or even perplexing, seeing that a Moor or Mudejar would frequently assume the name and surname of a Christian. Nevertheless, Gestoso has brought to light important notices concerning one or two, and in particular a document dating from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, relating to a celebrated potter of that period named Fernan Martinez Guijarro. This document, which is dated 1479, describes Martinez as “a very great master in the art of making azulejos, fonts, and all the things pertaining to his trade, insomuch that none other in all this kingdom is like unto him,” and subsequently, “considering him to be so excellent a craftsman that persons come hither from Portugal and other parts to purchase and to carry off his ware.” It is further stated that Martinez Guijarro was in wealthy circumstances (“hombre rrico e de mucha rrenta e fasyenda”). His talleres or workshops were in the barrio of Triana, and included (as we learn from one of the documents copied by the same investigator) a separate department for the manufacture or storage of lustred ware.

Unfortunately, even Gestoso is unable to point to any piece of tiling or other pottery now existing, as being unquestionably executed by this master.

Another Sevillian potter of exceptional merit was Cristóbal de Augusta, who worked in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and left his name upon the azulejo dadoes of the Halls of Charles the Fifth in the Alcázar. The style of these most brilliant tiles is pure Renaissance, and forms a worthy continuation of the splendid work of Niculoso. Augusta, indeed, is termed in the Archives of the Alcázar “master of making tiles in the Pisano manner” (del pisano).[74] Some tilemakers of little note succeeded him, but even the names of these are carefully recorded by Gestoso.

Seville was thus the principal centre of the craft of decorative tile-making. Azulejos were also made at Barcelona and other towns in Cataluña, at Talavera de la Reina, Burgos, Toledo, Granada, and Valencia, in several towns of Aragon, and probably at Cordova. Riaño quotes a letter written about the year 1422, from the wife of the Admiral of Castile to the abbess of the nunnery of Santo Domingo at Toledo, requesting that a number of azulejos be sent to her. “She alludes, in the same letter, to painted tiles, and says she was expecting a master potter from Seville to place the tiles in their proper places. This shows us” (continues Riaño) “that it was only in the province of Andalusia that the art was known of cutting these tiles into geometrical sections and mosaic patterns.”

The meaning of this passage is obscure. Riaño speaks of painted tiles and azulejos as though they were distinct objects, and yet they are essentially the same. Again, if only Andalusia was able to produce such tiles, why did the Almirante's wife order them from Toledo? Perhaps the faulty English of Riaño's handbook is responsible, but, as it stands, this passage tells us practically nothing. In any case, abundant evidence exists to show that large quantities of Mudejar and Renaissance tiles were manufactured at Toledo. In general appearance, they are similar to those of Seville.

Ramírez de Arellano believes that decorative tiles were manufactured at Cordova in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and quotes, in proof of this, the names of “maestros de hacer vidriado” or makers of glazed ware, who resided at this ancient capital. One of these craftsmen was Alonso Rodriguez the younger, who, on June 7th, 1574, sold to a canon of the cathedral ten thousand white and green tiles of a common kind (ladrillos), probably employed for roofing. The price was three ducats the thousand. On April 10th, 1598, Juan Sanchez engaged to supply the same temple with the same quantity of glazed tiles (tejas) for roofing, coloured white, green, and yellow, at sixteen maravedis each tile.

Azulejos were certainly made at Granada in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and probably earlier.

LVI THE GATE OF WINE (Showing polychrome tiling. Alhambra, Granada)

In a passage of the Alhambra palace leading from the Patio de la Alberca to the Cuarto Dorado, a space was laid bare not many years ago, containing the original mostagueras or small tiles used for flooring, glazed in two colours; and in the same building, although in constantly diminishing quantities, are large numbers of tiles which date from the time of the Spanish Moors. There has been a good deal of discussion as to whether the roofs of the Alhambra were originally covered with decorative tiles. Swinburne (who must not, however, be taken as the safest of authorities) wrote that “in Moorish times the building was covered with large painted and glazed tiles, of which some few are yet to be seen.”

Indifferent Renaissance tiles, made in the reign of Philip the Fifth, are still preserved in parts of the Alhambra.

Excellent polychrome cuerda seca tiles (fourteenth century), in white, green, yellow, blue, and black, are over the horseshoe archway of the Gate of Wine of the Alhambra (Plate lvi.). According to Gómez Moreno,[75] they were manufactured here, as were the Moorish azulejos, yellow, black, white, violet, and sky-blue, in the Mirador de Daraxa.[76] The archives of the Moorish palace also state that towards the close of the sixteenth century Antonio Tenorio, whose pottery was situated in the Secano, and consequently within a stone's-throw of the Casa Real, made several sets of azulejos for the Hall of the Abencerrajes. Good Morisco tiles, dating from the same period and wrought by craftsmen such as Gaspar Hernandez, Pedro Tenorio, and the members of the Robles family, are in the Sala de Comares, and in one of the rooms of the Casa de los Tiros.

From the thirteenth century until the eighteenth, excellent azulejos were made in Cataluña. Specimens of every period exist in the collections of Don Francisco Rogent and Don José Font y Gumá, of Barcelona, and Don Luis Santacana, of Martorell. The tiles belonging to these gentlemen proceed from the cathedral and other temples of Barcelona, and from the monasteries or castles of Poblet, Santas Creus, Montserrat, Marmellá, San Miguel de Ervol, Centellas, Torre Pallaresa, San Miguel del Fay, and Vallpellach.[77]

Another region which has long been celebrated for its azulejeria is the kingdom of Valencia. Even in the eighteenth century, when this craft was generally in a state of great decadence, Valencian tiles were thoroughly well made, although the patterns on them were defective. Laborde pronounced them “the best executed and most elegant in Europe,” and further said of this locality; “the painted earthenware tiles or azulejos are used in the country, but only a small part of them; a great many are sent into the interior of Spain as well as to Cadiz, where they are shipped for Spanish America, and to Marseilles, whence they are conveyed into Africa.”

The same writer inserts an interesting account of the manufacture of these azulejos. “It is at Valencia that the tiles of earthenware are made, with which they incrust walls and pave apartments: those tiles are of a clayey earth, which is found in the territories of Quarte near Valencia; they harden the earth long after soaking it in water; the tiles are formed in moulds, and are dried in the sun; they are then beaten with a piece of square wood of the dimensions of which they are wanted. They are then put into the oven, where they undergo a slight baking. As soon as they are done they are glazed, and are afterwards painted in water colours with whatever subject is intended to be represented. The tiles are then replaced in the oven so as not to touch one another, and that the action of the fire may penetrate them all equally: as the colours change by baking, the workmen apply them anew in proportion to the changes that take place; the red alone alters entirely. The varnish with which they are glazed is made with lead, tin, and white sand. These three substances are ground in a mill to powder, which is mixed with water, to form a paste, and baked in the oven; it is again pounded and put into the oven, where it crystallises: being once more reduced to powder and diluted with water, it becomes varnish. There are two kinds of it; one is whiter than the other, though the same materials are used: the mode of mixing alone makes the difference; the whiter, the clearer the tiles. It takes a certain number of tiles to form a picture: they are of different dimensions; the smallest are three inches nine lines, the largest seven inches nine lines. The price varies according to the size of the tile, the beauty of the varnish, and the variety of the drawings: the lowest price is eight pesos (25s.) a thousand, and the highest 100 pesos or £15, 12s. 6d. There is a considerable demand for them; they are superior both in beauty and strength to those used in Holland.”

LVII TILES OF THE DECADENT PERIOD

Bourgoing, author of the Nouveau Voyage en Espagne, described, in 1789, the same product in the following terms: “L'industrie des Valenciens tire d'ailleurs parti de toutes les productions de leur sol. Il contient une espèce de terre dont ils font ces carreaux de faïence colorée, connus sous le nom d'Azulejos, et qu'on ne fabrique qu'à Valence. On en pave les appartements, et on en revêt leurs lambris; on y peint les sujets les plus compliqués, tels par exemple qu'un bal masqué, une fête de taureaux. La couleur rouge est la seule qui ne puisse être fixée sur cette espèce de faïence; elle s'altere entièrement par la cuisson.”[78]

For the amusement of my readers, I insert an illustration of common Spanish tiles of the decadent period (Plate lvii.), displaying considerable liveliness combined with reckless ignorance of draughtsmanship. A class of these degenerate tiles, made in large quantities at Seville in the eighteenth century, is known as azulejos de montería or “hunting-tiles,” since episodes of the chase form one of the favourite themes of their design.

Although it passed through a long period of prostration, embracing the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at no time has the manufacture of decorative Spanish tiles succumbed completely. Of recent years it has revived surprisingly at Seville, Barcelona, and Segovia; and at the first of these cities the older azulejos, and particularly those in the cuenca style, are imitated to perfection.

In the cheapest kinds of modern tiling, such as is used for corridors and kitchens, a common device is a series of repeated curves and dots which evidently has its source in Arabic lettering. Indeed, the ornamental and attractive written characters of the Spanish Moors, rendered familiar to their rivals through long centuries of intercourse, seem to have constantly found favour with the Christian Spaniards. The fuero of Jaca, dated a.d. 1064, tells us that a Christian prince of Spain, Don Sancho Ramirez, was accustomed to write his signature in Arabic lettering. Meaningless inscriptions in the same language, and evidently executed by a Christian hand, are engraved on objects in the Royal Armoury; and Señor Osma describes in an interesting pamphlet (Los letreros ornamentales en la cerámica morisca del Siglo XV.) how, in the pottery of older Spain, a word in Arabic such as alafia (“prosperity” or “blessing”) would often be corrupted by Morisco craftsmen into a motive of a purely ornamental character, and which would only in this sense be comprehended and appreciated by the Christian.[79]

HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED POTTERY

Probably no pottery in the world possesses greater loveliness or interest than the celebrated, yet even to this day mysterious, lustred ware of Moorish Spain. Our knowledge of the early history of this ware is still imperfect. In modern times, attention was first drawn to the lustre process by M. Riocreux, of the Sèvres Museum. In spite, however, of the subsequent monographs and researches of Davillier and other authorities, the origin of lustred pottery is yet a problem which awaits solution. Until some years ago it was believed to have had its source in Persia, where many specimens have been discovered in the form of tiles and other objects; but this belief was afterwards shaken by Fouquet, who unearthed at Fostat in Egypt, in the year 1884, specimens of lustred ware which are known to date from the eleventh century. Saladin, too, affirms that he has seen upon the mosque of Kairuan lustred plaques with inscriptions recording them to have been presented, between a.d. 864 and 875, by the emir Ibrahim Ahmed-ibn-el-Aglab.

Whatever these facts may signify, it appears from a statement by the geographer Edrisi that lustred ware was made in Spain as early as the twelfth century. “Here,” said the writer, speaking of Calatayud, “is produced the gold-coloured pottery which is exported to all countries.” The next allusion to it is by the traveller Ibn-Batutah, who visited certain parts of Spain in the middle of the fourteenth century. “At Málaga,” he wrote, “is made the beautiful golden pottery which is exported to the farthest countries.” These passages refer respectively to Aragon and Andalusia. The same ware was produced in Murcia. Ibn-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari, mentions the “glazed and gilded porcelain” of Murcia, Málaga, and Almería, calling it “strange and admirable.” It was also manufactured, probably in larger quantities than in any other part of Spain, in many towns and villages of the kingdom of Valencia, such as Carcer, Alaquaz, Moncada, Quarte, Villalonga, Traiguera, and Manises. In the Excellencies of the Kingdom of Valencia, written by Eximenes and published in 1499, we find it stated that “surpassing everything else is the ware of Manises, gilded and painted with such mastery that all the world is enamoured thereof, insomuch that the pope, the cardinals, and princes send for it, astonished that objects of such excellence can be made of earth.”[80]

Other writers on the same locality, such as Diago and Escolano, author of the Historia de la insigne y coronada ciudad y reino de Valencia (Valencia, 1610, 1611), confirm this eulogy of Eximenes. According to Escolano, Valencian ware was “of such loveliness that in return for that which the Italians send us from Pisa, we send them boatloads of it from Manises.” One of the most recent of authorities on lustred ware remarks that “in the fifteenth century ornamental vases in the (Spanish-Moorish) wares appear to have been commanded from Spain by wealthy Florentines, as is evident from the Medici arms and impresa in fig. 40; others bearing the Florentine lily (fig. 41) seem to have been ordered from the same city.” The illustrations to which the author of this monograph[81] refers, depict a vase and a boccale, both in lustred ware, and which it is extremely probable were manufactured at Manises.

The same ware was also possibly made in Cataluña, where pieces of it have been found among the ruins of the village of Las Casas. La Alhambra, a small magazine which is published at Granada, contains, in the number dated September 30th, 1901, an account of these fragments by their finder, Joaquín Vilaplana.

Some years ago the Balearic Islands were also thought to have produced this pottery. One of the earliest and most fervent champions of this theory, now definitely shown to be erroneous, was Baron Davillier. This gentleman, in some respects an excellent authority on Spanish ceramics, relied too strongly on certain assurances made him by a Señor Bover, and ended by declaring that in the museums of Paris and London he had himself seen lustred plates which bore the arms of Ynca in the Balearics, proving them to have been manufactured at that town.

However, a Majorcan archæologist, named Alvaro Campaner, refuted one by one Davillier's points of argument, and showed beyond all question that both the plates of Ynca and the arms which decorated them were simply nonexistent, and that the term Majolica, deriving from Majorica, applies to pottery in general, and not with any preference to lustred ware. Campaner also suggested very ingeniously that the word Majolica was probably applied by the Italians to Catalan or Valencian pottery conveyed to Italy in vessels themselves belonging to the Balearics, and which were in the habit of completing their cargoes in the ports of Barcelona and Valencia, and he added that this suggestion is supported by the fact that specimens of lustred ware are far more often met with on the Balearic coast than in the towns and villages of the interior. It is only fair to state that Davillier frankly and fully recognized the value of Campaner's refutation.

As to the methods of producing lustred pottery, the chemical investigations practised by Riocreux, Brogniart, Carand, and others, have shown that the metals used to produce the characteristic reflex which gives the ware its name were copper and silver, entering into the composition of an extremely thin glaze extended over the surface of the pottery, and employed, sometimes together, and sometimes separately. It is obvious that the lustre produced by copper would be deeper, redder, and less delicate than that produced by silver, while varying gradations would be obtainable by the mixture of both metals. It is also beyond doubt that the oldest specimens of this pottery extant to-day are those which contain the palest and most pearly lustre, and consequently the largest quantity of the costlier metal. In those of later date there is an evident inferiority, both in colour, lustre, and design. In fact, two separate, or nearly separate, epochs of this branch of Spanish pottery are pointed out by Señor Mélida, who gives the name of Mudejar to lustred objects manufactured at an earlier time by Moorish artists working in the cities captured by the Christians, and that of Morisco to the second or inferior class produced by Morisco craftsmen after the reconquest, and distinguished by the coarser and degenerate lustre, colouring, and draughtsmanship.

The rarest and most beautiful examples of this ware are naturally those which belong to the former class, and consist of various kinds of plates and other objects in which elaborate devices such as lions, antelopes, and shields of heraldry, often combined with foliage and inscriptions in Gothic lettering, are coloured in bistre or pale blue,[82] and rendered doubly beautiful by the delicate nacreous lustre.

In nearly every case it is extremely difficult to determine with any certainty the date of manufacture of these objects, as well as the locality. Wallis says he is aware of “no example of Spanish lustre pottery antecedent to those in the class to which the large Palermo jar belongs, and they are not likely to be much earlier than the end of the fourteenth century. Happily the celebrated plaque (Plate lviii.) formerly belonging to Fortuny, and now in the possession of Excmo Sr. Don G. J. de Osma, furnishes an early date, which, according to its owner, is between May 1408 and November 1417. Those who know the original will remember that it is no less remarkable for the quality of its golden lustre than for the grace and elegance of its fanciful Oriental design.” It is also believed by Señor Osma that this plaque was manufactured in the kingdom of Granada; i.e. either at Granada or Málaga.

LVIII HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED PLAQUE (Early 15th Century. Osma Collection)

A specimen of Spanish lustred ware more celebrated even than Fortuny's plaque is the “vase of the Alhambra” (Plate lix.), which rests to-day in a corner of the Sala de las Dos Hermanas. The history of this mighty jar is interesting. Popular superstition affirms it to have been discovered, filled to the brim with gold, by the Marquis of Mondejar, first of the Christian governors of the fortress of Granada. Exposed for many years to every stress of weather and to every mutilation at the hands of passers-by, it stood, in company with other vases of enormous size, upon a rampart which is now the garden terrace known as the Adarves. Several of the older travellers have described these vessels or alluded to them. Marmol wrote of them as far back as the sixteenth century, while the journal of Bertaut de Rouen contains the following notice;—“Sur la première terrasse par où l'on entre, et d'où l'on a de la peine à regarder en bas sans estre ébloüy, il y a deux fontaines jaillissantes, et tout du long des murs du chasteau, des espaliers d'orangers et de grenadiers, avec de grands vases de terre peinte, aussi belle que la porcelaine, où il n'y avoit pour lors, sinon quelques fleurs en quelques-uns: mais où l'on dit que le Marquis de Mondejar trouva quantité d'or que les Mores avaient caché dans la terre, quand il y fût estably par Ferdinand.” The priest Echeverría, who forged the relics of the ancient Alcazaba of Granada,[83] was careful to repeat this fable in the twenty-sixth chapter of his Paseos por Granada. The first edition of this work was published in 1764, under the assumed name of Joseph Romero Yranzo. There were then two vases and part of a third, all “lacerated, peeled, and maltreated.” The Englishman Swinburne wrote in 1776 that below the Towers of the Bell, “on the south-side, on a slip of terrace, is the governor's garden, a very pleasant walk, full of fine orange and cypress trees and myrtle hedges, but quite abandoned. The view it commands is incomparable. Two large vases enamelled with gold and azure foliages and characters are the only ornaments left: these were taken out of the vaults under the royal apartments.” In the second edition of Echeverría's Paseos, which was republished in 1814, it is added in a footnote that only a single vase remained, “in a room that overlooks the Court of Myrtles.” Lozano, however, in his Antigüedades Arabes, mentions two vases as existing at the same period. Argote de Molina (Nuevos Paseos por Granada, published about 1808) describes, together with the wretchedly executed marble statues in the Sala de las Ninfas, the “two or three great porcelain jars whereof some pieces only now remain,” and reminds us that according to the old tradition these statues looked continually towards the vases, which were full of treasure. Argote, nevertheless, takes Echeverría sharply to task for his absurdities upon this theme; and Washington Irving, a diligent gleaner in Echeverría's somewhat scanty field, makes use of the same material for his well-known story.

LIX HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED VASE (Alhambra, Granada)

In the time of Owen Jones the one surviving vase, now standing with a wooden rail before it in a corner of the Hall of the Two Sisters, still occupied the “room that looks upon the Court of Myrtles.” Jones wrote of it in 1842:—“This beautiful vase was discovered, it is said, full of gold in one of the subterranean chambers of the Casa Real. It is at present to be seen in a small chamber of the Court of the Fish-pond, in which are deposited the archives of the palace. It is engraved in the Spanish work by Lozano, Antigüedades Arabes de España, with another of the same size, which was broken a few years ago, and the pieces sold to a passing traveller. The vase is executed in baked clay, with enamelled colours and gold similar to the mosaics.”

A more precise description is the following. The vase, which measures four feet six inches in height by eight feet two inches and a half in circumference, is of common earthenware painted with intricate devices fired after painting. This was a difficult operation in a vessel of such size; and here, in consequence, the colours have slightly run and mingled. Besides these technical flaws, the belly of the vase is broken clean in half, and one of the handles is missing. The shape is amphoraic, with a moderate downward curve. About the middle, surrounded by leaf and stem and geometrical devices effectively intertwined, are two antelopes. The vase is coloured blue and caramel upon a delicate yellow ground, and has a faint metallic lustre.[84] An Arabic inscription is repeated several times, and consists of the words “Felicity” and “Welcome.”

This vase is believed to date from the fourteenth century; and if we judge from the colour and composition of the earth employed, it appears probable that it was made at Granada. Together with the other vases which have disappeared,[85] it was doubtless meant to serve as a receptacle for water, and for decorating the chambers of the palace, where it would rest in amphora-fashion on a perforated stand, while smaller vases containing flowers would fill the niches which may yet be seen in various inner walls of the Alhambra. The belief of Argote[86] and many other writers that these niches were intended to receive the slippers of the Moors is utterly unfounded.

Until quite recently all published illustrations of the great jarrón de la Alhambra were inaccurate, and as a rule grotesquely so. Among the very worst are those inserted in the handbooks of Riaño and Contreras. I am glad to be able to reproduce an excellent photograph, which both corrects the atrocious cuts I have observed elsewhere, and relieves me from giving a prolix and possibly a wearisome description of the decoration on the vase.

LX HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED VASE (Madrid Museum)

Several other lustred vases of large size are still preserved in Spain and other countries. One, proceeding from a Sicilian church, is in the museum of Palermo. Wallis, who inserts an illustration, describes it as “amphora-shaped, with two large flat handles; pear-shaped body, long neck, ribbed at lower part, canellated above, moulded lip. Whitish body, tin glaze. Ornament painted in gold lustre on white ground, the pattern in parts almost obliterated. Hispano-Moresque. Height, one metre, seventeen centimetres.”

Another of these great vases belonged to the painter Fortuny, and was sold at his death to Prince Basilewsky, for thirty thousand francs. It was found by Fortuny at the village of Salar, near Granada, and purchased by him at a low price. “The neck and mouth resemble those of the Alhambra vase. The ornamentation is distributed about the body of the vase in four zones; one of the two central zones has tangent circles, and the other an inscription.”

LXI LUSTRED TILES (Osma Collection)

Another large lustred vase is in the museum of Madrid (Plate lx.). It was found by a labourer at Hornos in the province of Jaen, and passed into the hands of the village priest, who placed it in his church to support the font of holy water. In course of time a dealer in antiquities, by name Amat, happened to pass that way, observed the vase, and made an offer for it to the padre. This latter at first refused, but subsequently, stimulated by an ignorant though well-intentioned and disinterested zeal for bettering the temple, he stipulated that if the dealer provided a new support of marble for the font, and paid for white washing the church, he might bear off the coveted jarrón. Fulfilling these conditions at all speed, he mounted the precious vessel on an ass, and briskly strode away. When he had gone a little distance the villagers, missing their cherished vase, though unaware, of course, of its artistic worth, swarmed angrily about the purchaser, flourished their knives and sticks at him, and pelted him with stones. At this he called upon the mayor for protection; the mayor provided him with two armed men for bodyguard, and, thus defended, the indomitable dealer reached Madrid and sold his jar to government for fifteen hundred dollars. Its present value is estimated at not less than thirty thousand.[87]

One of the earliest and most interesting notices relating to the preparation of this lustred ware is contained in a description by one of the royal archers, named Henry Cock, of the progress, performed in 1585, of Philip the Second from the court of Spain to Zaragoza.[88] Cock wrote of Muel, in Aragon:—“Almost all the inhabitants of this village are potters, and all the earthenware sold at Zaragoza is made in the following manner. The vessels are first fashioned to the required shape from a certain substance extracted from the earth of this locality. They are next baked in a specially constructed oven, and when removed from this are varnished with white varnish and polished, after which they are washed with a mixture of twenty-five pounds of lead, three or four pounds of tin, and as many pounds of a certain sand which is found there. All these ingredients are mixed into a paste resembling ice, which is broken small, pounded like flour, and kept in powder. This powder is mixed with water, the dishes are passed through it, and after being rebaked they keep their lustre. Next, in order to gild the pottery, they take the strongest vinegar mixed with about two reales of powdered silver, vermilion, and red ochre, and a little wire. When all is thoroughly mixed they paint the patterns on the dishes with a feather, bake them again, and their gold colour is now quite permanent. I was told all this by the potters themselves.”[89]

LXII HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (A.D. 1460–1480. Osma Collection)

Another most interesting account of the manufacture of lustred ware was discovered in manuscript by Riaño in the British Museum, and, although it belongs to a later date (1785), is well worth quoting fully. It consists of a report upon the later gilded pottery of Manises, and was drawn up by order of the Count of Floridablanca:—

“After the pottery is baked, it is varnished with white and blue, the only colours used besides the gold lustre; the vessels are again baked; if the objects are to be painted with gold colour, this can only be put on the white varnish, after they have gone twice through the oven. The vessels are then painted with the said gold colour and are baked a third time, with only dry rosemary for fuel.

“The white varnish used is composed of lead and tin, which are melted together in an oven made on purpose; after these materials are sufficiently melted, they become like earth, and when in this state the mixture is removed and mixed with an equal quantity in weight of sand: fine salt is added to it, it is boiled again, and when cold, pounded into powder. The only sand which can be used is from a cave at Benalguacil, three leagues from Manises. In order that the varnish should be fine, for every arroba, twenty-five pounds of lead, six to twelve ounces of tin must be added, and half a bushel of finely-powdered salt: if a coarse kind is required, it is sufficient to add a very small quantity of tin, and three or four cuartos worth of salt, which in this case must be added when the ingredient is ready for varnishing the vessel.

“Five ingredients enter into the composition of the gold colour: copper, which is better the older it is; silver, as old as possible; sulphur; red ochre; and strong vinegar, which are mixed in the following proportions: of copper three ounces, of red ochre twelve ounces, of silver one peseta (about a shilling), sulphur three ounces, vinegar a quart; three pounds (of twelve ounces) of the earth or scoriæ, which is left after this pottery is painted with the gold colour, is added to the other ingredients.

LXIII HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (A.D. 1460-1480. Osma Collection)

“They are mixed in the following manner: a small portion of sulphur in powder is put into a casserole with two small bits of copper, between them a coin of one silver peseta; the rest of the sulphur and copper is then added to it. When this casserole is ready, it is placed on the fire, and is made to boil until the sulphur is consumed, which is evident when no flame issues from it. The preparation is then taken from the fire, and when cold is pounded very fine; the red ochre and scoriæ are then added to it; it is mixed up by hand and again pounded into powder. The preparation is placed in a basin and mixed with enough water to make a sufficient paste to stick on the sides of the basin; the mixture is then rubbed on the vessel with a stick; it is therefore indispensable that the water should be added very gradually until the mixture is in the proper state.

“The basin ready prepared must be placed in an oven for six hours. At Manises it is customary to do so when the vessels of common pottery are baked; after this the mixture is scratched off the sides of the basin with some iron instrument; it is then removed from there and broken up into small pieces, which are pounded fine in a hand-mortar with the quantity of vinegar already mentioned, and after having been well ground and pounded together for two hours the mixture is ready for decorating. It is well to observe that the quantity of varnish and gold-coloured mixture which is required for every object can only be ascertained by practice.”

Nevertheless, the gilded ware of the kingdom of Valencia had by this time deteriorated very greatly. Formerly, from as far back as the reign of Jayme the Conqueror, the other towns or villages of this region which produced the lustred and non-lustred pottery were Játiva, Paterna, Quarte, Villalonga, Alaqua, Carcer, and Moncada. Early in the fourteenth century fourteen potteries were working in the town of Biar, and twenty-three at Traiguera. Manises, however, maintained the lead for many years. The notices of Eximenes and other writers concerning the pottery of this town have been already quoted. The same ware is mentioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Diago (1613), Francisco Jávier Borrell, Beuter, and Martin de Viciana. Marineus Siculus, the chronicler of Ferdinand and Isabella, adds that similar or identical pottery (“desta misma arte”) was made in Murcia, whose manufacture of it had been praised in earlier times by Ibn-Said. Toledo also manufactured gilded ware with blue or bistre colouring. García Llansó says that in the sixteenth century this capital produced plates which contain the arms of Spain in the centre, the rest of the plate being completely covered with minute geometrical or floral ornamentation.

LXIV HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (A.D. 1460-1480. Osma Collection)

It is certain that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries large quantities of lustred pottery were produced in many parts of Andalusia, Castile, Aragon, and Valencia. The oldest and most valuable specimens of this pottery are those which have the palest and most purely golden lustre, combined with blue or bluish decoration in the form of animals, coats of arms, or foliage. The lustred ware of Manises began to deteriorate about the time of the expulsion of the Moriscos, when the leaves and fronds of a clean gold tone upon a lightish ground are replaced by commoner and coarser patterns, and the gold itself by the coppery lustre which is still employed.

After the seventeenth century the further decline of this once famous industry may be traced from the accounts of travellers. Towards the middle of this century Bowles wrote that “two leagues from the capital (Valencia) is a fair-looking town of only four streets, whose occupants are nearly all potters. They make a copper-coloured ware of great beauty, used for common purposes and for decorating the houses of the working-people of the province. They make this ware of an argillaceous earth resembling in its colour and composition that portion of the soil of Valencia which produces native mercury…. The objects they fashion of this earth possess a glitter and are very inexpensive, since I purchased half a dozen plates for a real. Nevertheless, this is not the ware which has the highest reputation in the kingdom of Valencia. The factory which the Count of Aranda has established at Alcora is not surpassed in Europe, and is ahead of many in fineness of substance, hardness of the varnish, and elegance of form. It would be perfect of its kind if the varnish did not crack and peel off so easily.”

According to Laborde, early in the nineteenth century Manises contained two potteries “of considerable extent, which employ seventy workmen. The people occupied in these possess the art of producing a gold bronze colour which they carefully keep a secret, never communicating it to any person.” Elsewhere in the same book Laborde is more explicit. “Manises is a village situated a league and a quarter north of Valencia. It is seen on the left coming from New Castile. It is noted for its manufactories of earthen ware, which employ thirty kilns, and occupy a great part of the inhabitants. The women are employed in forming the designs and applying the colours. There are two large manufactories of a superior kind, the earthen ware of which is tolerably fine, of a beautiful white, and a moderate price. They also make here vases worked with a great degree of delicacy.”

LXV HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (Late 15th Century. Osma Collection)

“The society of these workmen possess the secret of the composition of a colour which in the fire takes the tint and brightness of a beautiful gilt bronze. It has been unsuccessfully attempted to be imitated; the heads of the society compose the colour themselves, and distribute it to the masters who take care of it; it is a liquid of the colour of Spanish tobacco, but a little deeper.”

The quantity of Hispano-Moresque lustred pottery preserved in the public and private collections of various countries is far from small, although to classify it according to the place and date of its production is nearly always a matter of extreme difficulty.

Among the earliest specimens are the vase of the Alhambra, those which are now in the museums of Palermo and Madrid, that which belonged to Fortuny, and the plaque which once was also his, and now forms part of the Osma collection. Lustred Spanish tiles are scarce. A few exist at Seville[90] and Granada, chiefly in altar-fronts, along the archivolts of doorways, or, with heraldic motives, on the inner walls of houses of the aristocracy. Invariably, says Gestoso, such tiles are coloured with combinations of white, blue, and gold, since in the lustre process other colours—black, or green, or deepish yellow—proved unsatisfactory. Other lustred tiles of exquisite beauty are owned by Señor Osma, (Plate lxi.), and seem to have even gained in brilliance by the centuries that have passed over them. Riaño gives a list of the specimens of this pottery which are at South Kensington, consisting of bowls, vases, and plates. One of the vases is particularly beautiful. It dates from the fifteenth century, and is described by Fortnum as having “a spherical body on a trumpet-shaped base, with a neck of elongated funnel form, flanked by two large wing-shaped handles perforated with circular holes. The surface, except the mouldings, is entirely covered with a diaper-pattern of ivy or briony leaves, tendrils, and small flowers in brownish lustre and blue on the white ground.”

LXVI HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (Late 15th Century. Osma Collection)

Through the courtesy of Señor Osma I am able to give illustrations of a few of the finest specimens of lustred ware in his magnificent collection (Plates lxii.–lxvi.). The three small vessels facing pages 176, 178, and 180 are of Valencian workmanship, and date, according to their owner, from between 1460 and 1480. The two plates are also Valencian. The one with a bull in the centre dates from between 1480 and 1500; and that which has a greyhound from slightly earlier—say 1470 to 1490.

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]