Talavera Poblana: Four Centuries of a Mexican Ceramic Tradition (review)

Curated by Margaret Connors McQuade, this exhibit is a beautiful homage to the vibrant heritage of Mexican pottery known as Talavera Poblana. It is a carefully designed display encompassing 500 years of this tradition. The texts contained throughout the exhibit and the pottery chosen to illustrate it are absolutely magnificent. Furthermore, the selections are carefully chosen to illustrate historical periods, transitions in style, and key folk influences. The exhibition traces the development of this tradition from its earliest examples to contemporary experimental production.

Talavera Poblana was brought to Mexico during the viceroyal period by immigrant ceramists from Spain. Talavera Poblana is blue over white tin-glazed earthenware, which is akin to majolica and faience; its Spanish counterpart is known as Talavera del la Reina. The introductory section of the exhibit creatively shows us how Talavera is made by briefly introducing technical terms together with turn-of-the-century photographs of workers in Puebla's shops. Although these photographs are part of the exhibit, they are, except for one, lamentably not reproduced in the catalog. At first, Mexican production was almost identical to Spanish ware, which is the emphasis of the first section of the exhibit. The pottery during this period had a legacy of Moorish influence apparent in the use of flower and vegetable forms as well as decoration that would not allow for empty spaces.

Slowly, Talavera Poblana changed and acquired its own personality, deriving orientalist motifs during the 17th and 18th centuries due to commerce with the Philippines, China, and Japan. Many vases and bowls appear to have a direct relationship to Ming pottery with a Mexican twist: cranes flying over cacti.

The first room is full of examples drawn from major collections in the United States. These are, in their majority, pharmaceutical containers and receptacles used in religious services. Apothecary jars, bowls, plates, and jars for precious spices and exotic ingredients such as cocoa and cinnamon come from the collections of the Hispanic Society of America, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With the introduction of slips that gave the ceramic different hues during firing, the ware left its Moorish influence and moved into a more picture-oriented aesthetic. Yellow, brown, green, and orange were used during the 18th century to create domestic scenes and bucolic images popular in Europe during the same time. However, many basins or lebrillos still betray their Moorish ancestry with playful color combinations and designs that are surely akin to Mexican churriggueresque, a cut baroque style that has its best examples in church facades and altars. The selection of pieces also includes royalist pottery honoring Ferdinand VII crafted during the Independence Revolution. Mexican tongue-in-cheek humor is not absent from this exhibit, either: a jug for pulque, the Mexican fermented catsu drink, is inscribed "El que no ba / enbia / con su gavito / a la pulqueria [sic]" [He who does not go / sends for / with the jug / to the pulque shop]. The advent of neoclassicism is evident in the trace of the majestic image of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, which is found at the entrance to the exhibit. Building facades, kitchens, and patios in Puebla and Mexico City still bear traces of this decorative tradition where tiles with images of virgins or saints decorated walls. The industry came near total collapse during the years immediately preceding the Mexican Revolution of 1910. It took new Spanish immigrants to revitalize the craft. The arrival of Enrique Ventosa to Puebla insured the survival of the ceramic workshops in the area. His training is uncertain, but upon arriving in Mexico he quickly became part of the local intelligentsia, befriending prominent citizens such as Mariano Bello, art...