LEATHER

see captionVARMCHAIR(17th Century. Museum of Salamanca)

VARMCHAIR(17th Century. Museum of Salamanca)

Among the Mussulmans all this has undergone no change. Do we not find their present furniture to be identical with that of distant centuries?—a characteristic scarcity of portable articles of wood; the isolated box (arquetaorarcón) which serves the purpose of our clumsier chest of drawers or wardrobe;[15]carpets and decorated leathers; the tiny, indispensable table; the lack of knives and spoons; ornaments to regale the eye rather than commodities which the hand might seize upon and utilize? Such was, and is, and will continueto remain Mohammedan society throughout the world; and these descriptive passages of life in seventeenth-century Morocco might have been penned with equal truth in reference to the Spanish Muslim of a thousand years ago.

The furniture of the Moorish mosques was also of the scantiest. “They are,” to quote once more from Lancelot Addison's amusing little brochure, “without the too easy accommodations of seats, pews, or benches. The floor of the Giámma is handsomely matted, and so are the walls about two feet high. If the roof be large and weighty, it is supported with pillars, among which hang the lamps, which are kept burning all the night.” At one point of his expedition the reason for such paucity of furniture was vividly expounded to our tourist. A Moor indignantly exclaimed to him that it was “a shame to see women, dogs, and dirty shoes brought into a place sacred to God's worship, and that men …; should have chaires there to sit in with as much lascivious ease as at home.”[16]

Nevertheless, a pulpit in the mosque, and a seat of some kind in the palace or the private house, were not to be dispensed with. We learn fromIbn-Khaldoun and many other writers, that the throne of the Mussulman sultans was themimbar,takcht, orcursi. Each of these objects was a wooden seat. The first of the sultans to use a throne was Moawia, son of Abu-Sofyan. The princes who came after him continued the same usage, but displayed a constantly increasing splendour in the decoration of the throne. This custom spread, in course of time, from east to west throughout almost the whole dominion of the Muslims. The Beni-Nasr princes of Granada are also known to have used a throne, but this is believed to have consisted simply of some cushions piled one upon another. This inference is drawn by Eguilaz Yanguas and other Arabists from the oldVocabularyof Fray Pedro de Alcalá, who renders a “throne” or “royal seat” bymartaba, a word equivalent to “cushion.”

see captionVICHAIR AND TABLE(17th Century. Salamanca Cathedral)

VICHAIR AND TABLE(17th Century. Salamanca Cathedral)

Cushions, too, became symbolic, even with the Christian Spaniards, of a seat of honour; both because they lent themselves to rich embroidery or leather-work, and because they raised their occupant above the level of the persons seated positively on the carpet or the floor. In the painting on the ceiling of the Hall of Justice in the Alhambra, ten men are congregated in Mohammedancostume, each of them seated on a cushion. Some writers, including Argote de Molina, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, and Hernando del Pulgar, believed these figures to be actual portraits of the sultans; others maintain that they depict theMizouaror royal council. In either case, however, the cushion here is clearly an honourable place. We have, besides, abundant evidence that the Spanish Christians viewed the cushion with as marked a liking as their rivals. Alvarez de Colmenar relates that at the very close of the seventeenth century the Spanish women sat at meals in Moorish fashion. “Un père de famille est assis seul à table, et toutes les femmes, sans exception, mangent par terre, assises sur un carreau avec leurs enfants, et leur table dressée sur un tapis étendu.” The same work says elsewhere that “lorsque les dames se rendent visite, elles ne se donnent ni siège ni fauteuil, mais elles sont toutes assises par terre, les jambes en croix, sur des tapis ou des carreaux.”[17]

Therefore, until two centuries ago, the women of Christian Spain were suffered to take their seat on cushions of brocade or damask. Only the men made use of stools or chairs, accordingto their rank. To “give a chair” (dar silla) to a visitor of the male sex was to pay him a valued courtesy;[18]and even now the wife of a grandee of Spain goes through the honourable though irksome ceremony, at the palace of Madrid, of “taking the cushion.”

see captionVIICHAIRS UPHOLSTERED WITHGUADAMECILES(17th Century)

VIICHAIRS UPHOLSTERED WITHGUADAMECILES(17th Century)

Another usage with the Spaniards of the seventeenth and immediately preceding centuries was the “dais of honour” orestrado de cumplimiento. This was a platform very slightly raised, and separated by a railing from the rest of the room. The curious manuscript discovered by Gayangos, descriptive of court-life at Valladolid in 1605, contains the following account of one of the occasions when the Queen, following a common custom of a Sunday, dined alone, in sight of all the aristocracy. “The table was laid upon the dais (estrado alto), beneath a canopy of brocade that overhung the whole of it. The queen sat at the head of the table, and three ladies, standing, waited on her; two uncovering the dishes as they came,[19]and the third carving. Thedishes were brought from the dining-room door by themeninos, who handed them to the ladies. Other ladies of the royal household, wives or daughters of grandees, stood leaning against the wall in company with gentlemen who, on such occasions, sue for leave beforehand to attend on Lady So and So, or So and So. Commonly there are two such cavaliers to every dame. If the queen asks for water, one of these ladies takes it to her, kneels, makes an obeisance, kisses the goblet, hands it to her majesty, and retires to her appointed place. Behind the queen was one of her chamberlains. Many of the Englishmen were witnessing the meal. They always put the English first on such occasions; and as they are such hulking fellows (God bless them!) I, who was at their back, scarce noted anything of what was passing, and only saw that many plates went to and fro.”

Solid and expensive furniture continued to beused in Spain throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries; the ponderous chest, the ponderous brasier, ponderous stools, ponderous armchairs with massive nails and coverings of velvet or of decorated leather (Platesvv.,vi., andvii.). Upon the wall, the tapestry of earlier times was often replaced by paintings of a sacred character, or family portraits. The comedy titledLa Garduña de Sevilla, written about the middle of the seventeenth century by Alonso del Castillo Solorzano, describes the interior of a rich man's dwelling of this period. “Upstairs Rufina noted delicate summer hangings, new chairs of Moscovy cowhide, curiously carved buffets, and ebony and ivory writing-desks; for Marquina, though a skinflint towards others, was generous in the decoration of his own abode…. When dinner was over, he took her to a room embellished with fine paintings, and with a bed whose canopy was of some Indian fabric…. Paintings by famous masters were plentifully hung about the house, together with fine Italian hangings, various kinds of writing-desks, and costly beds and canopies. When they had visited nearly all the rooms, they opened the door of one which contained a beautiful altar and its oratory. Here were a great arrayof costly and elaborate Roman vessels, agnuses of silver and of wood, and flowers arranged in various ways. This chamber, too, was full of books distributed in gilded cases.”

see captionVIIITHESALA DE LA BARCA(Before the fire of 1890. Alhambra, Granada)

VIIITHESALA DE LA BARCA(Before the fire of 1890. Alhambra, Granada)

A characteristic piece of Spanish furniture was at this time the solid-looking cabinet known as thevargueño, so denominated from the little town of Vargas, near Toledo, formerly a well-known centre of their manufacture. These cabinets, whose origin, according to the Marquis of Monistrol, may be traced to a fifteenth-century form ofhuche, or chest provided with drawers for guarding articles of value, and which opened in the centre, are commonly made of walnut. The front lets down upon a massive wooden rest supported by the legs, and forms a folding writing-table containing at the back a number of drawers or compartments for storing documents, or other things of minor bulk.

The woodwork of these cabinets is often without carving; but generally in such cases their bareness is relieved by massive and elaborately ornamented iron fastenings and a decorative key.

The Ordinances of Granada tell us that in 1616 the making of defective furniture had grown to be a scandal in that town. The cause, it seems, was partly in the wood itself, proceedingfrom the Sierra de Segura, Pinar del Duque, and the Sierra de Gor. “Divers of our carpenters and joiners cut their walnut and other woods while yet the moon is crescent, whereby the wood decays and spoils. Others there be that make and sell chairs, desks, beds, and other furniture of green unseasoned wood which warps and loosens, insomuch that within some days the article is worthless. Therefore we order that all walnut wood and other woods for making furniture be only cut at the time of the waning moon, and be not used until they shall have seasoned thoroughly, so as not to warp; and that they be approved by the inspectors of this trade, under a penalty of six thousandmaravedisfor each of the aforesaid Ordinances that be not complied with.”

see captionIXDOOR OF THE HALL OF THE ABENCERRAJES(Alhambra, Granada)

IXDOOR OF THE HALL OF THE ABENCERRAJES(Alhambra, Granada)

The municipal laws of the same city relative to the “chair-makers who make hip-chairs to sit in, and leather-covered chests,” were cried, in 1515 and 1536, “in the street of the chairmakers and carpenters.” Fettered by irksome regulations of this kind, we cannot wonder that the arts and crafts of Christian Spain were fated to decline.[20]Owing to the “false and faulty workmanship” prevailing in Granada, it is provided by these statutes that the wood employed in making chairs must be bought by the manufacturers in public auction only, held “in the little square where dwell the chairmakers.” It must be thoroughly dry and free from flaws, and of sufficient stoutness to sustain the decorative marquetry. The chair which lacks these requisite conditions must be seized and burnt. The four nails which fasten the seat of the chair to the legs must traverse the frame completely and be hammered back upon the other side, unless the surface of the chair be inlaid, in which case they need not pass completely through. The leather for the seats and backs of chairs must be good in quality andwell prepared and dressed, besides being strongly sewn with flaxen thread. Chairs of all sizes must bear the official city mark, stamped by the authorities at a charge of onemaravedifor each of the large chairs and ablancafor each of the small.

Makers of the leather-covered chests are ordered to use the hides of horses, mares, or mules, and not the hides of oxen, cows, or calves, because, if covered with this latter, “the chests grow moth-eaten and are destroyed much sooner.” The craftsman who transgresses this command must lose the faulty piece of furniture, and pay four hundredmaravedis, while under a further penalty of two hundredmaravedisthe hinges must be fixed inside the chest, and not to its exterior.

see captionXMOORISH DOOR, DETAIL OF CARVING(Hall of the Two Sisters, Alhambra, Granada)

XMOORISH DOOR, DETAIL OF CARVING(Hall of the Two Sisters, Alhambra, Granada)

I have omitted hitherto all mention of the furnishing of humbler Spanish houses in the olden time. The following passage from the Ordinances of Granada shows us, referring to an inn, an unpretentious lodging of about four hundred years ago:—

“Item.If the innkeeper have a parlour or alcove that fastens with a lock, and therein a bed of the better class, with hangings round about it, and a canopy above, and on the bed acounterpane, friezed blanket, and pillows; also a bench with its strip of carpet or striped benchcloth, a table with its service of tablecloths and all that be needful, besides a lamp of brass or ware, all of the best that he is able to provide—for such a bed and room he may demand twelvemaravediseach day; whether the room be taken by one guest, or two, or more.”[21]

Nor was the Spanish inn more comfortable in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries than in the sixteenth. “On entre d'ordinaire dans les Hôtelleries par l'écurie, du moins dans de certaines Provinces; on vous mène dans quelque chambre, où vous trouvez les quatre parois, quelquefois un bois de lit; pour chandelle on allume un grand nombre de petites bougies, qui font assez de lumière pour voir ce que vous mangez; et afin que l'odeur and la fumée de tant de bougies n'incommode pas, on vous apporte, si vous le souhaitez, un brasier de noyaux d'olives en charbon. Quand on monte, on trouve au haut de l'escalier, laSeñora de la Casa, qui a eu le tems de prendre ses beaux habits de dimanche pour vous faire honneur et s'en faire à elle-même.” (Alvarez de Colmenar, in 1715.)

It is interesting to compare these passages withLancelot Addison's account of a Morocco inn towards the middle of the seventeenth century; bearing in mind thatfonda, the current Spanish term forhostelry, is common both to Spain and to Morocco:—

“In later years, every town of traffic hath erected a sort of Inns calledAlfándach, which affords nothing but House-room for man and beast, the market yielding provision for both. Those that farm thesefandáchscannot exact above a Blankil a night both for man and beast, which is in sterling money about two pence. The horses lodging costing equally with his Rider's.”[22]

Similarly, the keeper of the older Spanish inn was not allowed by law to traffic in provisions. “Nothing but house-room” was available for wayfarers, and the weary visitor, as soon as ever he arrived, must sally forth to do his marketing.

see captionXIDOOR OF THESALON DE EMBAJADORES(Alcázar of Seville)

XIDOOR OF THESALON DE EMBAJADORES(Alcázar of Seville)

“Quand on arrive aux Hôtelleries, fut il minuit passé, l'on n'y trouve rien de prêt, non pas même un pot sur le feu. L'hôtel ne vous donne que le couvert et le lit, pour tout le reste, il le faut envoyer chercher, si vous ne voulez prendre la peine d'y aller vous-même. On donne l'argent nécessaire,et l'on va vous chercher du pain, du vin, de la viande, et généralement tout ce que l'on souhaite, si tant est qu'on le puisse trouver. Il est vrai que cette coutume a son bon côté.

“Le prix de toutes ces choses est réglé, l'on sait ce qu'il faut payer, et un hôte ne peut pas friponner. On vous apprête votre viande, et l'on donne une réale et demie, ou deux réaux pour leservicio, comme ils parlent, et autant pour le lit, ce qui revient environ à quinze sous de France. Si l'on se trouve dans quelque grande ville, on aura une nappe grande comme une serviette, et une serviette grande comme un mouchoir de poche; dans d'autres endroits il faut s'en passer.

“Les lits ne sont pas fort ragoutans; quelque matelas, ou quelque paillasse, ou tout au plus une couverture de coton; à la campagne il faut passer la nuit sur le carreau, ou bien sur quelque botte de paille, qu'on doit avoir soin de faire bien secouer, pour en chasser la vermine.”

The statements in this passage relative to the lack of food in Spanish hostelries are confirmed, nearly a century later, by Townsend, who records that on reaching a certain village his first proceeding was to turn his steps, not to thefondaorposadawhere he would engage his bed, but to the butcher's, wine-seller's, and so forth, “to see what was to be had, as I had travelled all day fasting.”

It is beyond the province of this work to dwell upon the foreign taste in furniture which invaded Spain from France upon the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, and so I limit my notice of the eighteenth century to quoting from Laborde the following comprehensive passage:—

“If the Spaniards,” this traveller wrote in 1809, “take many precautions against heat, they take scarcely any against cold; it is very uncommon to find doors or windows that shut close, and the rooms are very little and very ill-warmed. The use of chimneys even is very uncommon, and only prevails in the houses of such Spaniards as have travelled. Brasiers of copper or silver are generally employed, which are set in the middle of the apartment, filled with burning charcoal, and round which the family place themselves.

see captionXIIDOOR OF THESALON DE EMBAJADORES(Alcázar of Seville)

XIIDOOR OF THESALON DE EMBAJADORES(Alcázar of Seville)

“The beds in Spain are hard. They are only made of mattresses, more or fewer, laid on paillasses which rest upon a boarded bottom; for neither sacking nor feather beds are known. Nobolsters are used, but in their place little, short, flat pillows are heaped up, sometimes to the number of six or eight. The sheets are in general short and narrow; and napkins scarcely as big as a small pocket handkerchief.

“The furniture of the houses is usually very simple. The floor is covered with a matting ofespartoin winter, and of rushes or palm leaves in summer. A matting of the same kind, a painted cloth, or painting in panels, covers the walls from the floor to the height of four or five feet; above, the wall is bare, painted white, and adorned with pictures of saints and a kind of ornamented metal chandeliers; these are covered with a glass, surrounded with a border of gilt ornaments; and a little branch of gilt copper proceeds from them forming zig-zags or festoons, on which the candles are placed; they are called cornucopias; they are from one to three feet in height, and give the apartment the air of a coffee room, or billiard room. Mirrors are placed between the windows, and a lustre of clear glass in imitation of crystal is suspended from the middle of the handsomest saloons. The chairs have straw bottoms; in some provinces, as Murcia, Andalusia, and Valencia, they are of different heights; those onone side of the room being of the common height, and the others one third lower. The latter are intended for the ladies. In some of the principal cities one also sees chairs and sofas of walnut wood, the backs of which are bare, and the seats covered with damask; usually crimson or yellow.

“Luxury begins, however, to show itself in these objects. In the chief cities many hangings are of painted paper or linen; even hangings of brocades, of one and of three colours, and of various other kinds of silk; large and beautiful mirrors, and a number of sofas may be seen. The houses of the grandees in Madrid are magnificently furnished, but usually with more cost than taste. Hangings of silk, velvet, and damask, adorned with rich fringes and gold embroidery, are very common, and the seats are of corresponding magnificence. Many houses in Barcelona, Cadiz, Valencia, and Madrid are decorated with equal study and elegance.

“The custom of painting the walls is of late introducing itself into Spain. They are covered with representations of men and animals, with trees, flowers, landscapes, houses, urns, vases, or history pieces, divided into compartments, adornedwith pillars, pilasters, friezes, cornices, and arabesques; the effect of the whole is often very agreeable. This kind of decoration was imported from Italy.”[23]

see captionXIIIALCÁZAR OF SEVILLE(Façade and principal entrance)

XIIIALCÁZAR OF SEVILLE(Façade and principal entrance)

In this account we clearly trace each various and successive influence that had permeated older Spain, leaving her, at the close of every period, a nation that produced illustrious artists, but never a nation deeply versed in, or devoted to, the arts. The beds and brasiers of these modern Spaniards were derived from ancient Rome; their general dearth of comfortable furniture, together with the lower, and therefore more humiliating, seats for women, from the Spanish Moors; the typically ponderous hangings from mediæval Spain herself; the fresco wall-paintings, such as may still be seen in many a Spanish country home, from classic or Renaissance Italy; and the finicking gilt, rococo cornucopias from France; while the use of mirrors and of lustres in hideous combination with straw-bottomed chairs, almost reminds us of the days of Visigothic barbarism.

Guadamacilería, or the art of decorating leather with painting, gilding, and impressions in relief, is commonly believed to have crossed from Africa to Spain at some time in the Middle Ages. According to Duveyrier, the wordguadamecíorguadamecilis taken from Ghadames, a town in Barbary where the craft was practised long ago; but Covarrubias gives it an origin directly Spanish, supposing that the title and the craft alike proceeded from a certain town of Andalusia. However this may be, the preparation of these leathers grew to be a most important industry in various parts of Spain, and spread, as time went on, to Italy, France, and other European countries.[24]

see captionXIVDOOR OF THE CAPILLA DE LOS VARGAS(Madrid)

XIVDOOR OF THE CAPILLA DE LOS VARGAS(Madrid)

In the Peninsula, the principal centres of this work were Cordova, Seville, Lerida, Barcelona, Ciudad Real, and Valladolid. Cordova, however, was so far ahead of all the rest that leathers decorated in this style were known throughout the world ascueros de Córdoba, or “Cordovaleathers.” Another name for them is said to have beencordobanes; but possibly the application of this latter word was less restricted. Bertaut de Rouen wrote in the seventeenth century of Ciudad Real:—“C'est une ville située dans une grande plaine, et dont l'enceinte est assez grande, qui estoit mesme fort peuplée autrefois, mais elle est quasi deserte à present. Il ne luy reste plus rien sinon que c'est là où l'on appreste le mieux les peaux deCordouan, dont on fait les gans d'Espagne. C'est delà aussi d'où elles viennent pour la pluspart à Madrid. J'en achetay quelques-unes.”

In 1197 Alfonso the Ninth presented the town of Castro de los Judíos to León Cathedral and its bishop, confirming at the same time the tribute which the Jews who occupied that town were bound to render upon Saint Martin's day in every year, and which consisted of two hundredsueldos, a fine skin, and twoguadamecís. This tribute had existed since the reign of Ferdinand the First: that is, towards the middle of the preceding century.[25]

None of these primitive leathers now exist, and consequently the details of their workmanshiphave perished with them. Ramírez de Arellano mentions two small coffers in the Cluny Museum, which date from about the fourteenth century and are decorated with the forms of animals cut from leather and overlaid on velvet. Otherguadamecís, though not of the oldest, are in the South Kensington Museum. “The earliestguadamecileros,” says Ramírez de Arellano, speaking particularly of this art at Cordova, “were accustomed to imitate brocade upon their leathers, employing beaten silver together with the colours red, green, blue, black, white, and carmine, applied in oils, or sometimes (although the law prohibited this) in tempera. Gold was not used till 1529, when Charles the Fifth confirmed the Ordinances of this industry. The leather-workers tanned the hides themselves, stamping the pattern from a wooden mould, and then (if we may call it so) engraving on them. The hides were those of rams. The spaces between the decoration were either coloured red or blue, or simply left the colour of the skin; or else the pattern would be wrought in colours on the natural hide. Gold, which at a later epoch almost totally replaces silver, was introduced between 1529 and 1543, and wasapplied as follows. The artists smeared with oil the parts they wished to figure in raised or sunk relief, and laid the beaten gold upon the oil. They then applied a heated iron or copper mould; the pattern in relief was stamped; and the gold, superfluous shreds of which were wiped away with lint, adhered upon the leather. The irons required to be moderately hot, because if overheated they would burn the hide, or, if not hot enough, the fixing of the gold would not be permanent.”

see captionXVMUDEJAR DOOR(Palacio de las Dueñas, Seville)

XVMUDEJAR DOOR(Palacio de las Dueñas, Seville)

The importance of this industry in Spain may be judged of from the fact that towards the close of the Middle Ages theguadamacilerosof Seville occupied nearly the whole of an important street—the Calle Placentines. Similarly, at Cordova they filled the quarter of the city known as the Ajerquía. “So manyguadamecíesare made here,” wrote Ambrosio de Morales, “that in this craft no other capital can compare with her; and in such quantities that they supply all Europe and the Indies. This industry enriches Cordova and also beautifies her; for since the gilded, wrought, and painted leathers are fixed upon large boards and placed in the sun in order to be dried, by reason of their splendour and variety they make her principal streets right fair to look upon.”

We owe to Rafael Ramírez de Arellano mostvaluable and recent information respecting this ancient Spanish-Moorish craft.[26]He has discovered the names of nearly fortyguadamacileroswho lived and worked at Cordova, principally in the sixteenth century. It is not worth while to repeat these names alone, but one or two particulars connected with a few of them are interesting. In 1557 four of these artificers, named Benito Ruiz, Diego de San Llorente, Diego de Ayora, and Anton de Valdelomar, signed a contract to prepare the cut and paintedguadamacilesfor decorating a palace at Rome. This contract, which is most precise and technical, is published in No. 101 of theBoletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones. The only further notice which Señor Ramírez de Arellano has discovered relating to any of these four craftsmen, tells us that nine years after the signing of the document just mentioned, Diego de Ayora leased some houses in the Calle de la Feria for a yearly rental of twenty-two ducats and three pairs of live hens.

Another interesting contract is dated April 17th, 1587. By it theguadamacileroAndrésLopez de Valdelomar agreed, in company with Hernando del Olmo of Marchena, and with Francisco de Gaviria and Francisco Delgado, painters, of Cordova, to make a number of pieces ofguadamecífor the Duke of Arcos. The work was to be terminated by July of the same year. Valdelomar was to receive from the duke's agent threerealesfor each piece, and the painters tworealesand a half; this money to be paid them by instalments as the work proceeded.

see captionXVICELOSÍA(Alhambra, Granada)

XVICELOSÍA(Alhambra, Granada)

On August 26th, 1567, before the mayor of Cordova and the two inspectors of this trade, Pedro de Blancas was officially examined and approved in “cutting, working, and completing aguadamecíof red damask with gold and silver borders on a green field, and a cushion with green and crimson decoration and faced with silver brocade.”

The Ordinances of Cordova also tell us much about this industry. The oldest of these city laws which deal with it are dated 1529. Those of 1543 were ratified by a Crown pragmatic early in the seventeenth century, and at this later date we learn that the craft had much declined, the leather being by now “of wretched quality, the colouring imperfect, and the pieces undersized.” The Ordinances published in the sixteenth centuryprovide that every applicant for official licence to pursue this craft and open business as aguadamacilero, must prove himself, in presence of the examiners, able to mix his colours and design with them, and to make a canopy together with its fringe, as well as “a cushion of any size or style that were demanded of him; nor shall he explain merely by word of mouth the making of the same, but make it with his very hands in whatsoever house or place shall be appointed by the mayor and the overseers of the craft aforesaid.”

It was also provided by these Ordinances that the pieces of leather were to be dyed, not with Brazil-wood, but with madder, and that their size, whether the hide were silvered, gilt, or painted, was to be strictly uniform, namely, “the size of the primitive mould,” or “three-quarters of a yard in length by two-thirds of a yard, all but one inch, in width.” The standard measures, made of iron and stamped with the city seal, were guarded under lock and key; and the Ordinances of 1567 establish the penalty of death for everyguadamacilerowho shall seek, in silvering his wares, to palm off tin for silver.

see captionXVIICARVEDALERO

XVIICARVEDALERO

These leathers served a great variety of purposes, public or private, sacred or profane.They were used upon the walls and floors of palaces and castles, as table-covers, counterpanes, bed-hangings, cushions, curtains for doors, linings for travelling-litters, coverings of chests and boxes,[27]and seats and backs of chairs and benches (Platevii.). In churches and cathedrals, especially throughout the sixteenth century, we find them used as tapestry and carpets,[28]altar-fronts (such as one which is preserved in the chapel of San Isidro in Palencia cathedral), or crowns for images of the Virgin.[29]As time advanced, gold and a coat or so of colour wassucceeded by elaborate painting. Thus painted, they were often cut into the forms of columns, pilasters, or friezes in the Plateresco or Renaissance style,[30]until the growing popularity of wall-pictures, together with the importation of French fashions at the death of Charles the Second, crippled and ultimately killed the decorative leather industry of Spain.

The artistic carpentry of older Spain produced as its most typical and striking monuments, threegroups of objects which may be included generally under Furniture. These are thecelosíaor window-lattice, the door oflazo-work, and theartesonado-ceiling which adorns a hall or chamber, corridor or staircase.

see captionXVIIICARVEDZAPATAS(Casa de Salinas, Salamanca)

XVIIICARVEDZAPATAS(Casa de Salinas, Salamanca)

These happy and effective styles of decoration came originally from the East. Their passage may be traced along the coast of Africa from Egypt into Spain; and they flourished in Spain for the same reason which had caused them to flourish at Cairo. “When we remember,” says Professor Lane-Poole, “how little wood grows in Egypt, the extensive use made of this material in the mosques and houses of Cairo appears very remarkable. In mosques, the ceilings, some of the windows, the pulpit, lectern or Koran desk, tribune, tomb-casing, doors, and cupboards, are of wood, and often there are carved wooden inscriptions and stalactites of the same material leading up to the circle of the dome. In the older houses, ceilings, doors, cupboards, and furniture are made of wood, and carved lattice windows, or meshrebiyas, abound. In a cold climate, such employment of the most easily worked of substances is natural enough; but in Egypt, apart from the scarcity of the material, and the necessityof importing it, the heat offers serious obstacles to its use. A plain board of wood properly seasoned may keep its shape well enough in England, but when exposed to the sun of Cairo it will speedily lose its accurate proportions; and when employed in combination with other pieces, to form windows or doors, boxes or pulpits, its joints will open, its carvings split, and the whole work will become unsightly and unstable. The leading characteristic of Cairo wood-work is its subdivision into numerous panels; and this principle is obviously the result of climatic considerations, rather than any doctrine of art. The only mode of combating the shrinking and warping effects of the sun was found in a skilful division of the surfaces into panels small enough, and sufficiently easy in their setting, to permit of slight shrinking without injury to the general outline. The little panels of a Cairo door or pulpit may expand without encountering enough resistance to cause any cracking or splitting in the surrounding portions, and the Egyptian workmen soon learned to accommodate themselves to the conditions of their art in a hot climate.”[31]

see captionXIXCARVEDZAPATAS(Museum of Zaragoza)

XIXCARVEDZAPATAS(Museum of Zaragoza)

These valuable and interesting observationsapply with equal justice to the decorative woodwork of the Spanish Muslims. A further point of interest lies in the fact that window-grilles and ceilings of the kind referred to, grew to be extremely fashionable through the whole Peninsula. Carried by Moorish or Mudejar craftsmen far beyond the frontiers of the Mussulman sultans of this European land, we find to-day surviving specimens in every part of Spain—most of them, it is true, in sultry Andalus; but many also in the old seigniorial mansions of Castile, or even in the cold and humid towns and cities of Cantabria.

The man who did this kind of work was not a common carpenter. Such work was largely practical and prosaic, but also it was largely decorative and poetical. Probably, both in his own and in his customer's regard, the decorative quality was set before the practical. Therefore, beyond the dry, comparatively facile details of technique, this workman studied, with an artist's reverence and zeal, the inner, subtler, sweeter mysteries of line and form; harmonies of curve and angle; patterns, now geometrical, now floral, now these two combined with magic ingenuity; steeping himself in the æsthetic sense; making, indeed, his work the literal fact or fitting of prosaic application thatwas indispensable; but also, and as if upon some loftier initiative of his own, a miracle of art for people of a later day to come and stand before and wonder at.

see captionXXALEROAND CORNICE OF CARVED WOOD(Cuarto de Comares, Alhambra, Granada)

XXALEROAND CORNICE OF CARVED WOOD(Cuarto de Comares, Alhambra, Granada)

Indeed, whether because Our Lord had practised it, or from some other motive, carpentry was always well esteemed among the Spaniards. The Ordinances of Seville eulogize it, in conjunction with its sister-work of masonry and building, as “a noble art and self-contained, that increaseth the nobleness of the King and of his kingdom, that pacifieth the people, and spreadeth love among mankind, conducing to much good.”[32]The same Ordinances divide these honourable craftsmen into half a dozen classes and sub-classes; carvers orentalladores, carpenters who kept a shop (carpinteros de tienda),carpinteros de lo prieto, andcarpinteros de lo blanco. The latter are the class we are considering here, and these, in turn, were subdivided intolazerosor makers oflazo-work,non-lazerosor those who did not make it, andjumetricosorgeómetricos. The statutoryexamination was severe in all these branches. Thus, thelazero-carpenters of Seville were required to make a chamber of octagonallazo-work, including its pendentives at the corners; while the wood-carvers of the same city were required to be experienced draughtsmen and to make and carve “artistic altar-screens with decorated columns, pedestals for images, and tabernacles (i.e.the part of an altar where the cibory and the Host are kept), as well as tombs and chambranles with their covering, tabernacles of the utmost art (de grande arte), and rich choir-stalls.”

Nor was the making of artistic ceilings, doors, and window-gratings carried out exclusively by men of Moorish blood. Tutored by these, the Christians practised it with great success. Prominent among these last we find, early in the seventeenth century, the name of Diego Lopez de Arenas, a Christian-Spaniard and a native of Marchena, who held the licensed title of master-carpenter and lived for many years at Seville.[33]In a lucky moment it occurred to Lopez de Arenas to write and publish for the benefit of hisfellow-craftsmen a book upon this decorative oriental woodwork that had passed into the Spanish national life. This book,Carpintería de lo Blanco,[34]appeared at Seville in 1633, and fresh editions were printed at the same city in 1727, and at Madrid in 1867. As in the Ordinances of Granada, Seville, and Toledo, Arabic terms, too copious and too complicated for elucidation here, are constantly repeated in this book.[35]Much of the general information which we gather from it is, however, of great interest. Thus, we are told that with the Spanish artists, as in Egypt, the wood most often used, no doubt as being the cheapest, was pitch pine, parcelled and put together in the most elaborate decorative schemes. Such was the characteristicalfarge[36]ceiling of the Moorish, Morisco, and Spanish-Christiancarpintero de lo blanco. Its many fragments were secured upon the frame by long,small-headed nails, or by these nails combined with glue. If we observe the ceilings from close by, as when, for instance, they are taken down to be restored, the workmanship appears to be coarse, inaccurate, and hasty; the myriad pieces to be clumsily and loosely joined; the nails to be driven in without method, or even awry. Nevertheless, this false effect betrays the calculating genius of the craftsman. He planned his work for contemplation by a certain light and at a certain elevation; and therefore, as the ceiling is removed again to its appointed distance, it seems to re-create itself in proud defiance of an error of our own, and grows at once to its habitual delicacy, harmony, and richness.

see captionXXI“ELIJAH SLEEPING”(Statue in wood, by Alonso Cano)

XXI“ELIJAH SLEEPING”(Statue in wood, by Alonso Cano)

I have said that the decoration of these ceilings is sometimes floral, sometimes geometrical, sometimes a combination of the two.[37]Sometimes the wood is plain, or sometimes silvered, gilt, or painted. Sometimes it is employed alone, or sometimes variegated and inlaid with plaster points and patches. By far the commonestmotive is thelazo—an ornamental scheme composed of infinite strips that turn, and twist, and intersect, describing in their mazy passage many polygons. One of these polygons determines, in a way, the scheme of the entire ceiling, which is denominated as consisting of “alazoof eight,” “of ten,” “of twelve,” etc., from this particular. The most attractive and most frequent is the scheme “of eight.” Among the decorative details used to brighten and enhance thelazoproper aremocarabesor wooden lacery for relieving cubes and joists or surfaces, andrácimosor “clusters”; that is, hollow or solid wooden cones or prisms, disposed along the side and centre panels of the ceiling like (in Arenas' ingenious phrase) the buttons on a jacket, and contributing to the massive aspect of the whole. These clusters, too, were sometimes in the stalactite and sometimes in a simpler form, and show, both in the quantity and richness of their ornament, a limitless diversity.

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