Townsend wrote, precisely at the same time as Bourgoing: “Segovia was once famous for its cloth, made on the King's account; but other nations have since become rivals in this branch, and the manufacture in this city has been gradually declining. When the King gave it up to a private company, he left about three thousand pounds in trade; but now he is no longer a partner in the business.[34] In the year 1612 were made here twenty-five thousand five hundred pieces of cloth, which consumed forty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-five quintals of wool, and employed thirty-four thousand one hundred and eighty-nine persons; but at present they make only about four thousand pieces. The principal imperfections of this cloth are, that the thread is not even, and that much grease remains in it when it is delivered to the dyer; in consequence of which the colour is apt to fail. Yet, independently of imperfections, so many are the disadvantages under which the manufacture labours, that foreigners can afford to pay three pounds for the arroba of fine wool, for which the Spaniard gives no more than twenty shillings, and after all his charges can command the market even in the ports of Spain.

“In the year 1525, the city contained five thousand families, but now they do not surpass two thousand—a scanty population this for twenty-five parishes; yet, besides the twenty-five churches, together with the cathedral, they have one and twenty convents. When the canal is finished, and the communication opened to the Bay of Biscay at Santander, the trade and manufactures of Segovia may revive; but, previous to that event, there can be nothing to inspire them with hope.”

Swinburne had written of the same city ten years earlier (1776): “The inhabitants do not appear much the richer for their cloth manufactory. Indeed, it is not in a very flourishing condition; but what cloth they make is very fine.”

Among the woven fabrics other than those of silk, and which are specified in the Ordinances of Granada relative to the tundidores or shearers, are cloths of Florence, Flanders, London, Valencia, Zaragoza, Onteniente, Segovia, and Perpignan; velarte (a fine cloth manufactured at Granada), red burel (kersey) of Baeza, black kersey of Villanueva and La Mancha, ruan (Roan linen), fustians, friezes, and cordellate (grogram) of Granada, Valencia, Toledo, Segovia, and Cuenca. According to Capmany, cloths of the commoner kind, and which were popular about this time, were the granas treintenas and black cloths of Valencia, the white or yellow veintiseiseno cloths of Toledo, the white cloths of Ciudad Real, the green palmillas of Cuenca, and green dieciochenos of Segovia, the contrayes of Cazalla, and the pardillos of Aragon. Spanish cloth was also manufactured at Vergara, Cordova, Jaen, Murcia, Palencia, Tavira de Durango, and Medina del Campo.

Laborde says: “In the archives of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile there is a notice of the duties paid from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century for foreign cloths sold in Spain, and for other articles of consumption coming from abroad. The principal cloths came from Bruges, Montpellier, and London; the velvets from Malines, Courtrai, Ypres, and Florence. This trade became so injurious to Spain, that Ferdinand and Isabella thought themselves bound to limit it entirely to the stuffs required for ornaments of the church, which of itself was a considerable quantity. Their prohibition is the subject of the rescript of September 2nd, 1494, for the provinces of the Crown of Castile. Even so far back as the Ordinances of Barcelona in 1271, mention is made of the taxes levied on the cloths of Flanders, Arras, Lannoy, Paris, Saint Denis, Chalons, Beziers, and Reims.”[35]

In 1809 the same author remarked: “The kingdom of Valencia produces little wool, yet there are five manufactories of woollens and coarse and fine cloths: they are at Morella, Enguera, Bocairente, Onteniente, and Alcoy. The small woollen stuffs are principally made at Enguera; nothing but the coarsest cloths are made at Morella, Bocairente, and Onteniente. The manufactory at Alcoy is the most considerable: the cloths, though finer, are generally of an inferior quality. The woof of them is thick, with little nap upon it. The finest are scarcely superior to the beautiful cloths of Carcassonne.”

EMBROIDERY

The art of embroidering, and especially of embroidering with the aid of gold and silver thread, was communicated to the Spaniards by the Spanish Moors, who doubtless had derived it from the East. By about the thirteenth century, the needle of the Spanish embroiderer had become, in the picturesque phrase of one of his compatriots, “a veritable painter's brush, describing facile outlines on luxurious fabrics, and filling in the spaces, sometimes with brilliant hues, or sometimes with harmonious, softly-graduated tones which imitate the entire colour-scheme of Nature.” Nevertheless, it was not until the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries that this art attained, in the Peninsula, its topmost summit of perfection.

It is not at all surprising that embroidery should have made great progress among a people so devoted to the outward and spectacular forms of worship as the Spaniards; nor have the chasubles, copes, and other vestments of the Spanish prelacy and priesthood ever been surpassed for costly splendour[36] (Plates x., xi., xii.). But generally where the Spanish embroiderer excelled was in the mere manipulation of the needle. In fertility of design he was far outdistanced by the Germans and Italians, and was even to a large extent their imitator; for Spanish embroidery, as occurred with Spanish painting, was influenced, almost to an overwhelming degree, firstly by northern art, and subsequently by the art of the Renaissance.

These tendencies or characteristics will be found in nearly all the masterpieces of Spanish embroidery that have been preserved until to-day, of which perhaps the most remarkable specimens are the manga or case of the great processional cross presented by Cardinal Cisneros to Toledo cathedral, and the “Tanto Monta” embroidered tapestry belonging to the same temple. The manga grande, known as that of the Corpus (Plate xiii.), is in the Gothic style, with reminiscences of German art, and consists of the following four scenes arranged in panels thirty-seven inches high, and hung successively about the handle of the cross:—

(1) The Ascension of the Virgin Mary, who is supported by six angels.

(2) The Adoration of the Magi.

(3) San Ildefonso in the act of cutting off a piece of the veil of Santa Leocadia, patron of Toledo.

(4) The Martyrdom of San Eugenio, another patron of the city of Toledo.

The ground of this elaborate “sleeve” is a fabric of rich silk, on which the embroidery is worked in gold and silver thread and coloured silks, principally blue and red, combined in delicate, harmonious tones. The figures are outlined with fine gold cord, which forms a kind of frame or fencing to confine the stretches of smooth silk. The careful copying of architectural detail is stated by Serrano Fatigati to be strongly characteristic of Spanish industrial art in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and even sixteenth centuries. The same writer considers that this “sleeve” was executed towards the year 1514, when embroiderers of great renown, such as Alonso Hernández, Juan de Talavera, Martin Ruiz, Hernando de la Rica, Pedro de Burgos, and Marcos de Covarrubias were engaged on similar work in the venerable city of the Tagus. Two out of the four panels, says Serrano Fatigati, may possibly be from the hand of Covarrubias, who was a famous craftsman of his time, and held the post of master-embroiderer in Toledo cathedral. In any case, the four panels are evidently not all by the same artist, nor do they appear to have been executed at precisely the same period.

“As a fine specimen of embroidery on a large scale, must be mentioned the dosel or canopy called the tent of Ferdinand and Isabella, which was used in the reception of the English envoys, Thomas Salvaige and Richard Nanfan, who were sent in 1488 to Spain to arrange the marriage of Prince Henry with the Infanta Doña Catalina.” The ambassadors describe it in the following manner: “After the tilting was over, the kings returned to the palace, and took the ambassadors with them, and entered a large room; and there they sat under a rich cloth of state of rich crimson velvet, richly embroidered with the arms of Castile and Aragon, and covered with the device of the King which is a … (blank in original),[37] and his motto, written at length, which is ‘Tanto Monta.’” (“Memorials of King Henry the Seventh,” Gairdner, London, 1858, p. 348).

Riaño also describes the mantle of the Virgen del Sagrario at Toledo. “It is completely covered with pearls and jewels forming a most effective ornamentation. This embroidery was made in the beginning of the seventeenth century, during the lifetime of Cardinal Sandoval, who presented it to the church.” Señor Parro, in his exhaustive work Toledo en la Mano (Vol. I., p. 574), gives the following account of it: “It is made of twelve yards of silver lama, or cloth of silver, which is entirely covered with gold and precious stones. In the centre there is a jewel of amethysts and diamonds. Eight other jewels appear on each side, of enamelled gold, emeralds, and large rubies. A variety of other jewels are placed at intervals round the mantle, and at the lower part are the arms of Cardinal Sandoval enamelled on gold and studded with sapphires and rubies. The centre of this mantle is covered with flowers and pomegranates embroidered in seed-pearls of different sizes. Round the borders are rows of large pearls. Besides the gems which are employed in this superb work of art, no less than two hundred and fifty-seven ounces of pearls of different sizes were used, three hundred ounces of gold thread, a hundred and sixty ounces of small pieces of enamelled gold, and eight ounces of emeralds.”

As in other countries, embroidery in Spain was executed in the bygone time, both by paid embroiderers, and as a domestic occupation by the ladies of the aristocracy. The work of the professional embroiderer consisted principally of paraments or altar-fronts (Plates xiv., xv., xvi., xviixvii.), and ecclesiastical vestments. Among the former of this class of objects, nothing is finer than the frontal of the Chapel of Saint George in the Audiencia of Barcelona. It is believed to have been wrought by Antonio Sadurni, a Catalan embroiderer who flourished in the middle of the fifteenth century. The scene represented is the combat between Saint George (patron of Cataluña) and the dragon. The saint has rescued a damsel from the monster's claws, and her parents are looking on from a mirador of their palace. This central episode is surrounded with borders and arabesques of extraordinary richness.

Riaño gives a list, compiled from Cean, Martinez, Suarez de Figueroa, and other authors, of forty-seven Spanish embroiderers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. More recently, Ramírez de Arellano has discovered, among the municipal archives of Cordova, the names of sixteen others, who resided at that city towards, or early in, the seventeenth century. The craftsmen in question were Diego de Aguilar, Juan Bautista, Bernardo Carrillo, Luis Carrillo de Quijana, Andrés Fernández de Montemayor, Hernán Gómez del Río, Diego Fabián de Herrera, Diego del Hierro, Diego López de Herrera, Diego López de Valenzuela, Antonio de Morales, Gonzalo de Ocaña, Mateo Sanguino, Manuel Torralbo, Cristóbal de Valenzuela, and Martin de la Vega.

Documents in the same archive contain additional particulars respecting two or three of these artificers. Thus, on February 10th, 1607, Hernán Gómez del Río engaged himself to embroider for the convent of the Trinity at Cordova, “a bordering for a chasuble and four faldones for dalmatics, with their collars and sabastros and bocas mangas. The said bocas mangas to be four in number, and the collars two; also the collaretes which may be necessary for the two dalmatics, and which I am to embroider in silk and gold upon white satin. The collaretes also to be embroidered by me in silk and gold to match a bordering of white satin for a cloak in possession of the said convent.” Further, the convent was to supply the artist with the quantity of white satin required, and pay him two hundred and ten ducats, secured by certain of the convent's revenues, for the gold, the silk, and the workmanship.

Manuel Torralbo contracted to embroider a velvet altar-front and its corresponding fronteleras for the parish church of Luque, at a price of three hundred reales; and Cristóbal de Valenzuela (on September 25th, 1604) to embroider two frontals for the altar of the church of Obejo. One of them was to be of purple velvet worked in gold, and the other of “black velvet, with borders and caidas embroidered in yellow satin and white satin, with skulls and bones embroidered in gold.”[38]

Turning our attention to the embroidery which was executed, principally as a recreation, by highborn Spanish ladies of some centuries ago, the romance of El Compte Arnau, quoted by Miquel y Badía and written in Catalan and Provençal, contains the following lines:—

Isabella the Catholic presented to the Chapel Royal of the cathedral of Granada an ecclesiastical robe embroidered by her own hands for the festival of Corpus Christi. The material was black satin brocade, with a fringe of white silk, and the letters IHS in white damask.[39]

The same usage continued in the seventeenth century. Countess d'Aulnoy says: “Young ladies of great beauty and of noble blood engage themselves to wait on ladies of the aristocracy, and spend most of their time embroidering the collars and sleeves of shirts in gold, silver, and coloured silk, although, if they be suffered to follow their liking, they work but little, and gossip a great deal.” The same writer refers repeatedly to the sumptuous embroideries in use among the upper classes of the Spaniards of that time. Thus, the bed-pillows of the Princess of Monteleón were embroidered with gold. The sleeves of the coat of Charles the Second were of white silk, very large, opening towards the wrist, and embroidered with blue silk and jet, the rest of his costume being embroidered in white and blue silk. In the palace of the same monarch, the daïs of the throne-room was covered with “a wondrous carpet, and the throne and its canopy were embroidered with pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones.” The cloaks of the chevaliers who belonged to the Military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcántara were embroidered with gold. The gentlemen of Madrid covered their horses with silver gauze, and trappings embroidered with gold and pearls.[40] The same gentlemen wore coats whose sleeves were of coloured satin, embroidered with silk and jet, and even their lackeys, when they attended their masters in a procession, wore uniforms of cloth embroidered with gold and silver. Unmarried girls and brides wore gold-embroidered bodices. The chairs in which the ladies of Madrid paid visits were made of cloth embroidered in gold and silver, stretched upon the wooden frame. In the train of the Duchess of Terranova went six litters covered with embroidered velvet. “In the parish church of San Sebastián,” wrote Countess d'Aulnoy, “I have seen a hand-chair made by order of the queen-mother, for carrying the Sacrament to sick persons in bad weather. It is lined with crimson velvet embroidered in gold and covered with hide studded with gilt nails: it has large window-glasses, and a kind of small belfry full of golden bells.”

With the succession of a French line of sovereigns to the throne of Spain, a taste for French embroideries passed into the Peninsula, and these, in course of time, were imitated by the Spanish craftsmen.[41] “We find,” says Riaño, “that Madrid was the principal centre of this industry, and that French designs were universally copied, as was the case in the whole of Europe. The splendid curtains and embroidered hangings for apartments which exist at the royal palaces of Madrid, the Escorial, and Aranjuez, are admirable specimens.”

I may mention here the embroidery, often of a rich and highly ornate character, which is, or used to be, applied to the regional costumes of Spain. Plate ix. is reproduced from a rare print in my possession, showing the gala dress, as it existed in the year 1777, of the charra of Salamanca, with full, white sleeves ornamented in black embroidery with animals and other devices. A similar costume is still worn in that neighbourhood. Plate xviii., also copied from a print in my collection, dating from about the year 1810, shows the costume worn by the women of the well-to-do middle class of the island of Majorca. “Le jupon ou guardapies,” says the manuscript description prefixed to this series of plates, “en mousseline, complete le costume de cette insulaire: il est orné au bas de riches broderies, mais assez court pour laisser voir un joli petit pied chaussé d'un bas de coton ou de soie et d'un élégant soulier de satin.”

TAPESTRY

There is a dim tradition, derived from or supported by a Latin poet (“Tunc operosa suis Hispana tapetia villis”) that carpets or tapestries of some kind were made in the Spanish Peninsula in the time of the Romans. Undoubtedly this craft was practised by the Spanish-Moors, particularly in the regions of Valencia, Alicante, Cuenca, and Granada. This statement is confirmed by two laconic notices which occur in the Description of Africa and Spain of Edrisi, a Mohammedan geographer of the twelfth century. Of the town of Chinchilla, in Alicante province, he wrote,—“woollen carpets are made here, such as could not be manufactured anywhere else, owing to the qualities of the air and water”; and of Cuenca, “excellent woollen carpets are manufactured at this town.”

“En Espagne,” says Müntz, “l'industrie textile ne tarda pas à prendre également le plus brilliant essor, grâce à la conquête maure. Les étoffes d'Almeria acquirent rapidement une réputation européenne; il est vrai que c'étaient des brocarts, des damas, et autres tissus analogues, non des tapisseries: l'influence qu'elles furent appelées à exercer au dehors se borna donc au domaine de l'ornementation.”

Of a similar composition to the foregoing fabrics specified by Müntz—that is to say, not genuine tapestries, although requiring for several reasons to be classed with these—is the celebrated “Genesis” (Plate xix.) of the cathedral of Gerona. This primitive yet complicated work of art, dating from the twelfth century, is embroidered in crewels upon linen, and represents the creation of the world. Its dimensions are about four yards high by four and a half yards wide; but the bordering has been torn away in places. The design is thus described by Riaño:—“In the centre is a geometrical figure formed by two concentric circles. In the lesser circle is a figure of Christ holding an open book, on which appear the words Sanctus Deus, and on each side Rex fortis, surrounded by the inscription, Dixit quoque Deus, Fiat lux, Et facta est lux. In the larger circle are the words, In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram, mare et omnia quæ in eis sunt, et vidit Deus cuncta quæ egerat et erant valde bona.

“The space between the two circles is divided by radiating lines into eight portions, in which are represented the Mystic Dove, the angels of light and darkness: the division of land from water, the creation of sun, moon, and stars, of birds, fishes, and beasts, and of Adam and Eve. In the angles outside the larger circle are the four winds, and the whole is surrounded by a border, imperfect in parts, containing representations of the months, and apparently of certain scriptural incidents, too much defaced to be clearly made out.”

The royal palaces of Spain and many of her noble houses have possessed, from about the fifteenth century, splendid collections of the costliest tapestries, consisting principally of paños de Ras, or “Arras cloths” (as they were called among the Spaniards, and especially in Aragon). Until a later period all, or very nearly all, these objects were imported from the Flemish workshops.[42] At the palace of a nobleman in Madrid, Bertaut de Rouen observed “les plus belles tapisseries du monde.” The same author tells us that in the seventeenth century, when he visited Spain and wrote his entertaining Journal, it was customary for the walls of the royal palace to be hung with tapestry in winter, these hangings being removed for greater coolness in the summer months. In reading descriptions of Spanish life referring to the same period, one is struck by the craze which prevailed among the Spaniards for displaying tapestries and other gay-coloured fabrics in all kinds of places and on every possible occasion. Thus, Bertaut de Rouen relates that when he saw a play performed in the Alcázar, “le long de ces deux costez de la salle estoient seulement deux grands bancs couverts de tapis de Perse”; that the boxes at the bull-fights, both at Madrid and in the country, were “tapissées de brocatelle de soye”; and that the lower part of the dome in one of the chapels of Seville cathedral was decorated with the same material. At the haunted castle of Quebaro, on the road from Galareta to Vitoria, Countess d'Aulnoy saw upon the walls of a large chamber, some tapestries representing the amours of Don Pedro the Cruel and of Doña María de Padilla. “This lady was depicted seated, like a queen, among various other ladies, while the king crowned her with a chaplet of flowers. Elsewhere Doña María was reposing in a forest, as the king offered her a falcon. I also saw her dressed as a warrior while the king, in armour, offered her a sword. This set me thinking whether she had ever accompanied Don Pedro in one of his campaigns. All the figures in these tapestries were badly drawn, but Don Fernando assured me that all well-executed likenesses of Doña María de Padilla represented her to be a woman of rare charm, the loveliest of her century.”

Pinheiro da Veiga says that at Valladolid in 1605, a banquet was celebrated in “a large gallery, completely covered with the richest silk brocade, as were most of the other apartments.” He also says that cloths of similar richness were employed as street-awnings. “Upon the ninth was the Corpus procession, at which the king was to assist; and a proclamation was issued that none should promenade on horseback or in coaches. I found nothing remarkable in this procession, unless it were the hangings and the awnings to keep off the sun, which were of the richest damask and brocade.” Of the same fiesta Countess d'Aulnoy wrote in 1679: “The streets through which the procession has to pass are adorned with the finest tapestries in all the world, since in addition to those belonging to the Crown, many of the greatest beauty are displayed by private persons. The celosías of all the balconies are replaced by elaborate canopies and hangings, and the whole roadway is covered with an awning to ward off the sun, and which, for the sake of greater freshness, is moistened with a little water.” Nearly identical with this account is that of Alexander de Laborde, who wrote, a century and a quarter later than the Countess; “On Corpus Christi day there is a grand procession composed of the regular and secular clergy of Madrid, followed by the king, his ministers, and court, each bearing in his hand a wax taper. Magnificent awnings of tapestry are raised in the streets through which the procession is to pass; the balconies are decorated with splendid hangings; the seats are covered with cushions, and occasionally surmounted with a daïs; in some of the streets the face of day is darkened by canopies which stretch from one side to the other. Altars are placed at regular intervals; the balconies are thronged with ladies superbly dressed, who sprinkle scented water, or scatter fragrant flowers on the passing multitudes.”

Pinheiro da Veiga also describes a set of remarkable tapestries, evidently Flemish, which he saw in the Chapter-room of the Convent of Cármen Calzado at Valladolid. “It was hung with the richest tapestry, silk, and paintings that had belonged to the Duke of Lerma. I greatly admired some cloths of green velvet, worked all over with the Bucolics of Virgil, in tarjas embroidered in silk and gold, as though they were sebastos[43] of ecclesiastical vestments, but these were old, of great value, and extraordinary merit. Finer still were certain cloths of recent workmanship, such as I had never seen equalled, of a white material painted in tempera, with the borders, dresses, and faces of the personages on them wrought in twisted gold. I never saw anything so brilliant or so novel. The cloths were eight in number, with four embroidered guardapuertas. The persons figured upon them wore belts of real pearls, rings set with diamonds and rubies on their fingers, and gold chains and medals studded with precious stones, just as living people wear them.”

The fashion of collecting foreign tapestries seems to have reached its height at the Spanish capital in the first half of the seventeenth century. “Nowadays,” wrote Fernandez de Navarrete, in his Conservacion de Monarquías, published in 1626, “gentlemen are not contented with hangings which a few years ago were considered good enough to adorn a prince's palace. The Spanish taffetas and guadamecíes, so highly esteemed in other provinces, are held of no account in this one (Madrid). The sargas and arãbeles wherewith the moderation of the Spanish people was satisfied in former days, must now be turned into injurious telas rizas of Florence and Milan, and into costliest Brussels tapestry.”