This article by Gabriele Ghiani was first published in the London Potters magazine, issue 221: June/July 2024.
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During a recent holiday, I had the pleasure of visiting Puebla in the state of Central Mexico.
A beautiful city about three hours away by road from Mexico City, Puebla is famous for the ‘Talavera Pueblana’ pottery tradition, which was included in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019.
Walking around the city you can find beautiful colonial and baroque style buildings covered with hand-painted tiles. The Talavera Pueblana has its origins in Talavera de la Reina in Spain, and it is thought the pottery tradition was brought to Mexico during the 16th century by the monks who travelled from Spain to Mexico spreading Christianity.
The Talavera production is an elaborate process. It starts with the mixing of two types of local clays: a dark and a pale rose-coloured clay. Only natural clays are used, rather than chemically treated and dyed clays and the handcrafting process takes three to four months. All the work is thrown on a wheel. The design of the pieces has been regulated by tradition since the colonial times. In 1997 a federal law was passed to regulate the remaining Talavera workshops and maintain the high quality and crafting process. Now these pieces carry holograms.
After drying and firing a tin-glaze (Majolica) is applied to give a milky-white coating. Only six colours are allowed to be used for the hand painted decoration, all made from local natural pigments: blue, yellow, black, green, orange and a pale violet. In the early days, only cobalt blue was used as the Christian monks associated the colour of the sky with their religious beliefs. Finally, a second firing hardens the glaze and the painted designs, commonly featuring animals, flowers, cacti, geometric patterns and elegant peacock feathers, have a blurred appearance as they fuse slightly into the glaze.
Not far from the city centre there is Fabrica Armando, a ceramics factory open to the public. I had the pleasure to visit it and I was welcomed by our guide, Fernando who showed me around the workshops, wheels, kiln rooms and the beautiful finished pieces on sale of Christian religious figures, Chinese inspired blue and white vases, Italian renaissance and work inspired from pre-Columbian myths. Several beautiful Peruvian shaped pots, painted with various different Arabic designs and given the name ‘big mouth’ by Fernando because of their wide spouts, caught my attention.
Fernando explained to me that the true Talavera should have a metallic echo when it is tapped. According to him it is the metallic elements that are found in the local clay which make the ceramic pieces sound like the bells of the cathedral of Puebla. To prove this he took an upside-down pot and banged a key against it. Indeed the sound was very intense!
What fascinated me the most about the pottery tradition of Talavera is that it has absorbed so many different cultural civilizations. First it originated in Spain which had been strongly influenced by the Arabs, who in turn were influenced by the Chinese. As you take in the striking pottery objects around you, it is amazing to witness how artistic techniques from other cultures have been adapted for the enjoyment and use in daily life of the Mexican people.
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