Talavera Pottery

Mexican cultural heritage is very rich and complex because of its history. The blending of the ancestral indigenous societies and the Spanish conquest is what we are currently seeing and admiring in their crafts today.

Talavera Pottery is one of the most traditional, finest and representative handcraft in Mexico. It’s original from the town of San Pablo del Monte at Tlaxcala State, but it’s at the cities of Puebla Atlixco, Cholula and Tecali where it was mostly developed. The reason is because clay’s natural quality.

Named Talavera because of Talavera de la Reina ceramics in Spain. In the XVI century, when the Dominican Monks arrived together with Spanish conquers, they needed “maiolicas” and ceramics for their churches and monasteries so they brought their masters craftsmen from “Talavera de la Reina” to teach, mexican people, this craft. They looked all around Mexico for the exact type of clay and they found the precise plasticity they needed in Puebla’s sands. In the beginning the color used was deep blue, them with the passage of time were included yellow, green, orange, mauve and black. All obtained from natural mineral oxides of the area.

The elaboration method is almost the same as in its origins and is strictly hand made. All the process can take between three to six months per piece. Two types of sand are mixed, washed and drained until the red clay is formed, is cooked twice, the first baked after the craftsman shape the piece and the second one for fixing the colors after been hand-painted. It’s interesting to mention that since the Colonial period until our days the artisan usually preys during the cooking process for the good result of the workpiece. Finally when it’s ready you can feel when you touch it different levels in its base this is due to the quality of the pigments used once they are cooked, this is one of the most important characteristics of Talavera Pottery.

Initially there were made only tiles to cover facades of churches, monasteries, homes, patios and other buildings, these tiles are called “azulejos”. Since the colonial period in Puebla’s homes the kitchen was an important space so were develop a variety of pottery for cooking and serving purposes. Nowadays the expert hands of the artisan and the creative eye of the artist have jointed and revitalized a tradition creating not only all sort of utilitarian items such as plates, bowls, jars, flowerpots or sinks but also religious and artistic pieces that currently are displayed in museums of Canada, China or at the New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, that has an important collection of Talavera’s artwork

Thanks to a government initiative on March 17^th, 1995, Talavera Pottery received the forth “Denomination of Origin” to preserve and promote this artwork and its authenticity. So, when you buy a Talavera artwork you must look in your piece for the written word Talavera, the hologram of the pottery workshop o artisan and the acronym DO4.

Making or creating handcraft is a noble labor that requires lots of love, patience and dedication to be done and that is what we observe Talavera’s pieces and we decided to include this artwork in our collection because it’s part of an ancient tradition that has been evolving it design but maintaining the same method and materials used in the past.