Abstract
This chapter focuses on the distinct ways in which potters in Puebla borrowed from Chinese porcelain. It begins with a discussion of the city itself, which was initially established as a religious and cultural center for the colony. Puebla was built in a previously unsettled area so that it could be a purely Spanish city, free of influences from the native populations. However, this goal was not realized, and the ceramics produced in the city were a testament to the diverse populations and various different cultural influences present in the colony. Potters in Puebla created a style of their own that combined indigenous, European, and Asian designs. The resultant aesthetic was uniquely Mexican and became a point of pride in the eighteenth century. Commentators even claimed that local talavera poblana ceramics were better than those made in Spain.
In the analysis of the production of ceramics in Puebla there is an explicit comparison with the production process of porcelain seen in the chapter on Jingdezhen. Readers will note the similarities and differences, particularly in the connectedness of the two places to the rest of the world. The artisans in Jingdezhen were isolated, which meant that they focused only on their craft and were able to make identical objects in large quantities. The potters in Puebla, on the other hand, were a motley group who tried to establish many rules to standardize their products, but did so in vain because of the constant influx of new craftsmen from both near and far. However, it was these varied influences that made talavera poblana unique. The global brand in Puebla provided local artisans with a vocabulary to enhance and distinguish their creations.
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Notes
- 1.
José Juan Tablada, “Puebla de los Ángeles (Notas de viaje),” in Los mejores poemas (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1993), 88–90. Translation mine. Spanish original: “Con el fotógrafo López Escalera/estuve una mañana … ¡Quién pudiera/Pasar un mes entero/En casa de Padierna, el Alfarero/Mago de la poblana Talavera!/Aquella mañana/Policroma y pregrina,/Aunque muy Mexicana/Fue un viaje al País de la Porcelana,/A la maravillosa China./Pues con arcilla plástica y tierna/Y los esmaltes minerales/Renueva el tlachichique Padierna/De Nanking a Kuanton las obras inmortales.” For more on orientalism in modern Mexican literature see Araceli Tinajero, Orientalismo en el modernism hispanoamericano (Purdue: Purdue University Press, 2003).
- 2.
Margaret Connors McQuade, “Talavera Poblana: Cuatro Siglos de Producción y Coleccionismo,” Mesoamérica 40 (2000), 136.
- 3.
See the photograph of Padierna’s workshop published in McQuade, “Talavera Poblana,” where Padierna and the artisans who worked in his workshop are surrounded by large jars modeled after Chinese examples.
- 4.
Ramon Mena, “Nueva orientación arqueologica e historica,” in El Maestro: Revista de Cultura Nacional (Mexico: La Universidad, 1922), 156.
- 5.
George Kuwayama, Chinese Ceramics in Colonial Mexico (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 81–83.
- 6.
Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, eds., The Essential Codex Mendoza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 232.
- 7.
Jorge Enciso, Design Motifs of Ancient Mexico (New York: Dover Publications, 1953), 94.
- 8.
Agustín Vetancourt, Teatro Mexicano: descripción breve de los sucesos ejemplares, historicos, politicos, militares y religiosos del Nuevo Mundo Occidental de las Indias (Mexico: I. Escalante y Ca., 1870–1871), 360–361. Translation mine. Spanish original: “… hay obrajes donde se labran Rajas, y paños finos, causa de que haya muchos Viruegos en la Puebla ; del hilado de los obrajes muchos se sustentan, y entretienen. Hay de todo género de oficios que componen República, e en Talavera, Vidrios, Cuchillos, y Jabón hacen raya en la Nueva España. La talavera es más fina que de la Talavera, y puede competir con la de China en su fineza, los Vidrios aunque no tan finos se parecen a los de Venecia; el temple de los cuchillos, y Tijeras exceed a los demás, como las hojas de Toledo.”
- 9.
Efraín Castro Morales, “Puebla y la talavera a través de los siglos,” Artes de Mexico 3 (Spring 1989), 29; John Goggin, Spanish Majolica in the New World: Types of the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Publications in Anthropology, 1968), 215.
- 10.
Bernabé Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, Tomo 1 (Seville: Imp. de E. Rasco Taveras, 1890), 243. Translation mine. Spanish original: “Labrase tan escogida loza y tan bien vedriada, que no hace falta la de Talavera, porque de pocos años a esta parte han dado en contrahacer la de China y sale muy parecida a ella, particularmente la que hace en Puebla de los Angeles en Nueva España …”
- 11.
Ida Altman, Transatlantic Ties in the Spanish Empire: Brihuega, Spain , and Puebla , Mexico, 1560–1620 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 50–51.
- 12.
Frances L. Ramos, Identity, Ritual, and Power in Colonial Puebla (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012), xxii.
- 13.
Ibid., 4.
- 14.
An early depiction of Puebla ’s coat of arms can be found in a document dating from 1538, MP-Escudos 45, in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain.
- 15.
Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, eds., The Essential Codex Mendoza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 3.
- 16.
For more on the travels of this codex see Daniela Bleichmar, “History in Pictures: Translating the Codex Mendoza ,” Art History 38, 4 (2015): 682–701.
- 17.
John Pohl, The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010), 5.
- 18.
Juan Villa Sanchez, Puebla sagrada y profana: Informe dado a su muy ilustre ayuntamiento el año de 1746 (Puebla: Impreso de la Casa del Ciudadano Jose Maria Campos, 1835), 9. Translation mine. Spanish original: “La segunda Ciudad del Reyno de Nueva España, segunda en dignidad, en grandeza, en ostension, en opulencia de fabricas, en número de vecinos, en nobleza, en letras, en policia y en todo aquello que constituye el cuerpo de una Ciudad y el alma de una República: la Ciudad de los Ange- les es verdaderamente el cuello y garganta del vastísimo cuerpo de esta América Septentrional, asi por la union ó in- mediacion de su magnifica y opulentisima Capital, que de su bárbaro fundador Mexi trajo el nombre de México, como por ser un miembro tan principal de este Reyno y una nobilisima parte que realza su hermosura y perfeccion, hacien- do que tanto mas sobresalga y aparezca la belleza de su Capital y Metropolitana Ciudad, cuanto mas se ecsalta y levanta sobre este hermosisimo cuello. No habrá nacion ni gente tan peregrina en el mundo, á cuya noticia no haya llegado la fama de la Puebla de los Angeles, aplaudida y famosa en los anales, celebrada en historias, delineada en mapas, copiada en pinturas y notada de todos los geografos en sus tablas; no le han dado tanto vuelo las plumas de los diligentisimos escritores que se empeñaron en recomendar sus prerrogativas á los distantes, cuanto es bastante a ecsaltarle la grandeza de su nombre.”
- 19.
Toribio Motolinía, Historia de los indios de la Nueva España (Mexico: Chávez Hayhoe, 1941), 270–271. “El asiento de la ciudad es muy bueno y la comarca la major de toda la Nueva España … Tiene el puerto de la Veracruz al oriente a cuarenta leguas; Mexico a veinte leguas. Va el camino del Puerto a Mexico por medio de esta ciudad; y cuando las recuas van cargadas a Mexico, como es el paso por aqui, los vecinos se proven y compran todo lo que han menester en mejor precio que los de Mexico; y cuando las recuas son de vuelta cargan de harina, y tocino, y bizcocho, para matalotaje de las naos … Tiene esta ciudad una de las buenas montañas que tiene ciudad en el mundo … todas estas montañas son de muy gentiles pastos … Hay mucha abundancia de aguas, así de rios como de fuentes.”
- 20.
Ramos, 7.
- 21.
Villa Sanchez, 41.
- 22.
Guy P.C. Thomson, Puebla de Los Angeles: Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700–1850 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), xix.
- 23.
Thomas Gage, Thomas Gage ’s Travels in the New World, ed. J. Eric S. Thompson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 49–50.
- 24.
Careri , 552.
- 25.
Ramos, 10.
- 26.
The plaque reads “En esta casa murió la encantadora Princesa del Gran Mogol, Mirra, que despues fue la venerable en Cristo Sor Catalina [sic] de San Juan, conocida por la ‘China Poblana ,’ el dia 5 de Enero del año del Señor de 1688.” “In this house died the enchanting princess of the Great Mughal [Empire], Mirra, who later became the Venerable Sister Catalina de San Juan known as ‘China Poblana,’ on the 5th day of January of the year of the Lord 1688.” Translation mine.
- 27.
Gauvin Bailey, “A Mughal Princess in Baroque New Spain ,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 71 (1997): 39.
- 28.
It was published under the title Sermon en que se da noticia de la vida … de la venerable Señora Catharima [sic] de San Joan (“Sermon reporting the life … of the venerable Señora Catarima de San Joan”). See Kathleen Myers, “Testimony for Canonization or Proof of Blasphemy? The New Spanish Inquisition and the Hagiographic Biography of Catarina de San Juan ,” in Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World, ed. Mary Giles (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 276.
- 29.
Ramos, xviii–xix.
- 30.
This work was titled Prodigios de la omnipotencia y milagros de la gracia en la vida de la venerable sierva de dios Catharina de San Juan (“Marvels of Omnipotence and Miracles of Grace in the life of the Venerable servant of God, Catharina de San Juan”).
- 31.
José del Castillo Grajeda, Compendio de la vida y virtudes de la venerable Catarina de San Juan (“Compendium of the life and virtues of the venerable Catarina de San Juan”).
- 32.
Myers, 283.
- 33.
As cited in Flora S. Kaplan, A Mexican Folk Pottery Tradition: Cognition and Style in Material Culture in the Valley of Puebla (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993), 2.
- 34.
Juan Antonio García Castro, “Pre-Hispanic Polychrome Ceramics from Central Mexico: General Characteristics,” in Talaveras de Puebla : Cerámica colonial mexicana, Siglos XVII a XXI, eds. María Antonia Casanovas and Margaret McQuade (Barcelona: Museu de Cerámica de Barcelona, 2007), 126.
- 35.
In our discussion of the development of Jingdezhen ’s ceramic industry, we saw that Muslim merchants patronized the Chinese ceramic industry precisely because artisans there were able to produce ceramics that naturally fired to a white color, and to combine them with a brilliant blue.
- 36.
Robin Gavin, Donna Pierce and Alfonso Pleguezuelo, eds., Cerámica y Cultura: The Story of Spanish and Mexican Mayólica (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 2–3.
- 37.
Margaret McQuade, Talavera Poblana: Four Centuries of a Mexican Ceramic Tradition (New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1999), 28–29. See also Ana Paulina Gamez Martinez, “The Forgotten Potters of Mexico City ” in Cerámica y Cultura: The story of Spanish Mexican Mayolica, eds. Robin Farwell Gavin, Donna Pierce, and Alfonso Pleguezuelo (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 226–243.
- 38.
Margaret Connors McQuade, “The Emergence of a Mexican Tile Tradition,” in Cerámica y Cultura: The story of Spanish Mexican Mayolica, eds. Robin Farwell Gavin et al. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 210.
- 39.
Margaret McQuade has also discussed the significance of local, indigenous knowledge to the development of the talavera poblana industry in her dissertation. See Margaret McQuade, “Loza Poblana: The Emergence of a Mexican Ceramic Tradition,” Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York (2005), 29.
- 40.
Florence Lister and Robert Lister, “The Potters’ Quarter of Colonial Puebla , Mexico,” Historical Archaeology 18, 1 (1984), 88.
- 41.
Luz de Lourdes Velazquez Thierry, “Fabricación de la talavera y el origen del término,” Artes de Mexico: La talavera de Puebla 3 (2002), 18.
- 42.
McQuade, “Loza Poblana,” 23.
- 43.
Florence Lister and Robert Lister, Andalusian Ceramics in Spain and New Spain: A Cultural Register from the Third Century BC to 1700 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988), 235. One of the ordinances published in 1653 stipulated that the thickness of plates should be the equivalent of one to four real coins so as to prevent cracks and chips. Ordinances printed in Antonio Peñafiel, Cerámica mexicana y loza de talavera de Puebla epoca colonial y moderna (Mexico: Imprimir y Fototipia de la Secretaria de Fomento, 1919), 35–36.
- 44.
McQuade, “Loza Poblana,” 161.
- 45.
Luz de Lourdes Velazquez Thierry, 18.
- 46.
This was stipulated in the ordinances. Spanish original: “Que el vidrio de talavera fina sea bien dispuesto y beneficiado, con una arroba de plomo, seis libras de estaño …” Peñafiel, 36. Translation mine.
- 47.
Patricia Acuña, Talavera de Puebla , Lecturas historicas de Puebla 10 (Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1987), 21.
- 48.
Lister and Lister, Andalusian Ceramics, 87.
- 49.
McQuade, “Loza Poblana,” 141.
- 50.
Ibid., 22–23.
- 51.
Lister and Lister, “The Potters’ Quarter of Colonial Puebla , Mexico,” 91.
- 52.
Lister and Lister, Andalusian Ceramics, 51–53.
- 53.
Lister and Lister, “The Potters’ Quarter,” 91.
- 54.
Edward Slack has suggested that the influence of Asian designs on talavera poblana ceramics was a result of chino slaves and freemen working in the workshops in Puebla . There is not enough evidence to suggest that there were significant numbers of chinos working in the potters ’ workshops, and none to prove that these men would have had experience of making ceramics in their former countries. Moreover, the material properties of porcelain and earthenware were so different that knowledge of making porcelain would not have necessarily helped in making earthenware ceramics. Indigenous potters familiar with local materials would have been more helpful in this regard. As for chino artisans introducing Chinese motifs, we see from a study of talavera poblana ceramics that Asian designs were not “slavishly” imitated, but rather modified and combined with other artistic traditions to create a wholly new aesthetic, proving then that these would not have been created by newly arrived Chinese artisans. See Edward Slack, “Orientalizing New Spain : Perspectives on Asian Influence in Colonial Mexico,” Análisis 15, 43 (2012), 120.
- 55.
Peñafiel, 38. Translation mine. Spanish original: “Item: en lo fino deben ser Pinturas los armados de Azul, y acabados con Negro con sus pintillas á los bordos ó faldas de todo lo que se pintare dicha Pintura.”
- 56.
Ibid. Translation mine. Spanish original: “… y porque haya variación la otra pintura que se echare de dicha Talavera fina, sera contrahecha á la de Talavera …”
- 57.
Ibid. Translation mine. Spanish original: “En lo fino deben ser sus Pinturas contrahaciendo a la de China de muy azul, labrado asimismo y realizado de azul, y se pinten en este genero de talavera puntas negras y campos de colores.”
- 58.
Enrique Cervantes, Nomina de loceros poblanos durante el periodo virreinal (Mexico: Manuel Casas, 1933), 42.
- 59.
Ibid., 70–71. Translation mine. Spanish original: “En la Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de los Angeles a veinte dias del mes de Mayo de mil setecientos setenta y seis años Antemi Du. Mariano Franscisco Zambrano Escribano de S.M. Mayor Publico Propietario del Cavildo Justicia, y Regimiento y del Tribunal de Diputación y Fiele Executoria, por el Rey Ntro. Sennor (que Dios guarde muchos años) Su Notario Publico de las Indias, Islas, y Tierra firme del Mar Oceano; parecieron Juan Cabesas, Andres Olivos, Manuel Maldonado y Joseph Mariano Medrano Alcalde, y Veedores del Gremio de lo Blanco, y Colorado, y dixeron que en cumplimiento de su obligacion, y de sus Reales ordenansas, han examinado en lo Colorado a Joseph Christoval Frias el qual expreso ser mestizo, y tener veinta y seis años deedad, y es de cuerpo regular, pelo negro, color trigueño, frente pequeña, seja poblada, ojos pequeños y aseitunados, naris ancha, labios gruesos, poca barba, cari agileño, y holloso virhuelas, al qual en preciencia de varios Maestros y oficiales de ambos oficios, le hisieron executar varias piesas de Losa Colorada, con otras preguntas y Repreguntas, a dho oficio tocantes, y a todas satisfiso bien, y cumplidamente como avil, capas y suficiente official, por lo quele daban y dieron por Maestro Examinado e dho oficio para que lo pueda usar, y exerser, con tienda y obrador Publico, con oficiales y aprendises, escritudaros, assi en esta Ciudad, como en todas las demas Ciudades, Villas, y Lugares del Rey Nuestro Señor (que Dios guarde muchos años) …”
- 60.
By the time that guilds were forming in colonial Mexico, they were losing their power in Europe. Lister and Lister, “The Potters’ Quarter,” 90.
- 61.
McQuade, “Loza Poblana,” 83.
- 62.
Lister and Lister, “The Potters’ Quarter,” 89 and 93.
- 63.
It has been published in Leonor Cortina, “Loza achinada: polvos azules de oriente,” Artes de Mexico: La Talavera de Puebla , 3 (2002), 51.
- 64.
Kuwayama, 81.
- 65.
McQuade, “Loza Poblana,” 131.
- 66.
The Chinese jar is shown in Kuwayama, 41.
- 67.
The ceramics found in the San Diego shipwreck consisted of a large number of objects with bird motifs, including some examples of a single bird perched on a branch or rock. If the San Diego is representative of other shipments to Manila, then we know that potters in Puebla would have access to many examples of Chinese porcelain with bird motifs. See Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal and Franck Goddio, Treasures of the San Diego (Paris: AFAA; New York: Elf; Manila: National Museum of the Philippines, 1996), 342.
- 68.
For more on the origins of the symbol see Doris Heyden, México, orígenes de un símbolo: versión adaptada e ilustrada (México: Dirección General de Publicaciones, INAH, 1998). See pages 52–54 for a reference to the snake in the legend.
- 69.
See for example an albarelo, or apothecary jar (a form adopted from Europe), that has a similar scene depicted on it, but the crane is not placed atop the cactus. Published in Florence and Robert Lister, Maiolica Olé: Spanish and Mexican Decorative Traditions (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2001), 84.
- 70.
The potters in Puebla also distinguished themselves in the production of tiles . They did so not by emulating Chinese designs (although they did include Chinese motifs on some tiles), but rather by taking advantage of the masonry of the buildings and creating patterns with the bricks and textures. They were able to show off their originality through the creation of tableros, patterns of tiles that made figurative images. The most notable such tablero was made for the façade of the church of San Marcos, which was also the church for the confraternity of the potters. On this façade the potters made a tablero of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, which combined with the brick to create a unique visual effect. See Margaret McQuade, “The Emergence of a Mexican Tile Tradition,” in Cerámica y Cultura: The story of Spanish Mexican Mayolica, eds. Robin Farwell Gavin et al. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 204–225.
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Priyadarshini, M. (2018). Blue-and-white Chocolateros: Crafting a Local Aesthetic in a Colonial Context. In: Chinese Porcelain in Colonial Mexico. Palgrave Studies in Pacific History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66547-4_5
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