Transcript from SHOPPER'S WORLD; Earthy Pottery From Portugal Transcript By Marvine Howe Aug. 6, 1989
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/06/travel/shopper-s-world-earthy-pottery-from-portugal.html SOMEHOW cabbage soup tastes more savory from a bowl in the shape of a giant cabbage leaf, and honey sweeter from a honeybee pot. And the table will look more festive if the braised duck and rice is served in a duck tureen.
After a period of decline, during which plastic and aluminum were all the rage, Portugal's earthenware is enjoying a popular revival at home and beginning to make a name for itself overseas.
The capital of Portuguese pottery is Caldas da Rainha, a prosperous farm town and the center of a region rich in clay, where people have been making earthenware vessels since neolithic times.
Actually, Caldas da Rainha is better known for its sulfuric waters, from which it got its name, which means the Queen's hot springs. According to historians, Queen Leonor, wife of King Joao II, learned of the therapeutic reputation of the waters and had a hospital built on this site in 1485. The original building has been restored several times, and people still come from afar to the Hospital Termal Rainha D. Leonor to treat rheumatism, arthritis, chronic respiratory diseases and other ailments. Caldas da Rainha, 55 miles north of Lisbon, gained renown for its pottery only a hundred years ago, when the artist and caricaturist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro and his brother Feliciano founded the Fabrica de Faiancas in 1884. Mr. Pinheiro, then 38 and director of a weekly newspaper, became artistic director of the new ceramics factory, and his brother, a military colonel, was named administrator.
Their declared aim was to develop the country's ceramic industry by producing everything from decorative pieces and the finest faience, or tin-glazed earthenware, to building tiles and ordinary china for people with low income. For their ambitious project, they sought machinery and techniques from France, Belgium and England. In 1889, Rafael Pinheiro showed his ceramic jars and plates decorated with raised forms of fauna and flora as well as his human figures that resembled sculpture, at the Universal Exposition in Paris and won wide acclaim. But production delays and management errors put the factory into serious financial difficulties by 1891, and the sector of ordinary ware had to be sacrificed.
Out of failure was born success. Rafael took over the factory and, with a small team of artisans, succeeded in making decorative ceramics an art form in Portugal. His work was fired by tremendous inventiveness, a delight in nature and a profound sense of humor. He created large decorative pieces, clearly influenced by the Art Nouveau movement, and at the same time re-created traditional models like the varinas, or fishwives, and Ze Povinho, a bumbling peasant with a scraggly beard, and his wife, Maria da Paciencia, with her long dress and an apron. After Rafael's death in 1905, his factory was taken over by outsiders, but his son Manuel and other disciples established a new factory to perpetuate his work.
Today, the ceramics factory, Faiancas Artisticas Bordalo Pinheiro, remains true to Rafael's principles, seeking to combine artistic quality - inspired largely by the flora and fauna of the region - with industrial production. The factory employs 150 workers who conceive and produce its models, including adaptations of Rafael's original work. Bordalo Pinheiro pottery can be found in Portugal's larger craft shops but most of the production is exported to the United States, France, England and Austria. Situated on the street that bears its founder's name, the Bordalo Pinheiro factory has set aside its oldest building as a museum. Decorated with traditional pottery-making tools, the museum contains many ancient concrete molds and valuable documents. But it is Rafael's original pieces that first catch the eye: a monumental St. George created in 1900, and a huge plate with fruit and lobster, dated 1897. There are also reproductions of his fluffy white cat, Pili, with pink ears and yellow bell, and a large black washbowl embellished with slithering eels. The factory still produces Rafael's grass-green tiles, decorated with artichokes, grasshoppers, butterflies, large and small frogs, water lilies, turnips or cats. But, as Francisco Jose Malhoa, acting manager of the factory, recently said, ''Rafael's green doesn't exist anymore'' because the high lead content required to make the brillian color has been banned. ''Before Rafael, there were ceramic craftsmen in Portugal, but he was an artist, who knew his colors,'' Mr. Malhoa said. He noted that Rafael was strongly influenced by Bernard Palissy, the 16th century French sculptor-scientist, who is known for his large earthenware platters decorted with realistic forms of lizards, snakes, shells and leaves.
Visitors to the Bordalo Pinheiro factory are welcome to watch the pottery-making process: First the raw clay is mixed with quartz, mica, iron oxides or other substances and water to achieve a plasticity. Then the excess water is filtered out and the soft clay is kneaded to get rid of air bubbles. For earthenware, the slip casting method is generally used, in which the liquid clay, or slip, is poured into a plaster mold. When the clay thickens on the wall of the mold, the rest of the liquid is poured out. As the clay begins to dry, it detaches itself from the mold. Next the object is trimmed of any perfections and put aside to dry.
Then it goes to the kiln for firing, at a relatively low temperature of around 1,830 degrees. The factory has five electric and three gas kilns. The resulting unglazed ware, or bisque, is then coated with glaze -a mixture of silica, alumina and metallic oxide - to give the earthenware color and make it more resistant. Again it goes back to the kiln, where it remains 12 to 18 hours before it is finally comes out to cool and then packed.
The Bordalo Pinheiro factory shop carries a wide variety of traditional pieces in the shape of natural objects, as well as reproductions of Rafael's fantasies, at prices often for half what they cost in Lisbon's ceramic stores. The factory does not arrange for shipping, not do other shops in the town.
In the rich collection of cabbage leaf ware, a large salad dish is priced at $3.63 (at 159 escudos to the dollar); an hors d'oeuvres platter at $6.40; a fruit basket at $9.15; and olive plate for $1.35, and a teacup and saucer for $2.25.
The off-white ware lends itself to seafood, with a large fish platter at $3.30; a fish dinner plate at $2.10; a sardine plate at $1.50; a fish soup tureen with cover $8.40. Similar sets are available in salmon pink, lemon or turquoise.
Other objects from the nature collection include a large duck tureen for $9, an asparagus plate for $2.80 and a small honey pot with a bee on top for $2. The most expensive pieces in the factory shop are representations of Ze Povinho for $69 and Maria da Paciencia for $79.
Original works of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro can also be found in the Sao Rafael Museum and the Jose Malhoa Museum, which celebrates another favorite son and painter, but contains religious statues by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro.
Caldas da Rainha does not live only on its laurels. On the outskirts of town stands a sprawling modern building called Cencal, an acronym for Caldas Center. The center's director, Francisco Vicente de Carmo, said the aim of the center was to provide the Portuguese ceramic industry with the research, training and technological support needed to assume its place in the European Community.
The Cencal laboratory tests the quality of clays and controls the glazes used by the local factories. Courses at the center are given in molding, decoration, industrial ceramics, traditional hand techniques and computer design.
In the crafts section, some students were learning about the potter's wheel and foot power and how to knead clay by hand. In the computer design class, others were making a mold of a duck by computer.
Visitors are welcome to visit Cencal, but large groups should make an appointment. The center also has a store where the students' works are sold for reasonable prices.
Changes in the Portuguese pottery scene are visible in the streets of Caldas da Rainha. Just a few years back, there were numerous pottery stands at the fruit and vegetable market, held daily at the central Praca da Republica. Today, only two stands regularly sell the rough red earthenware.
TRADITIONAL pottery is now sold mainly in gift shops. On the Rua da Liberdade, a short pedestrian street off the main square, there are a half-dozen shops that offer some of the best names in Portuguese pottery. Shops are generally open from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. and 3 P.M. to 7 P.M. weekdays and Saturday mornings.
Faiancas Subtil, a relatively young factory that exports most of its ware, displays a cabbage leaf soup set with tureen, six bowls and plates for $33. Louca Leonel's best-seller is a cabbage leaf soup set with tureen, six bowls and ladle for $21. At Belo, a large white fish tureen sells for $16. Francisco Manuel Oliveira Mendes sells its pineapple ware; a fruit salad set with a bowl and small dishes for four costs $16.
A large pink building at the entrance to town belongs to Secla, the country's leading pottery exporter. There is a sales office at the factory where visitors may purchase cachepots, candleholders, garden ornaments, kitchen sets and other items at advantageous prices. FINDING LODGING NEARBY
The best place to stay near the pottery center of Caldas de Rainha, or at least have a good meal, is the Pousada do Castelo (telephone 95105) in the medieval walled city of Obidos, three miles South of Caldas da Rainha. Rooms, about $98 a night for two, including breakfast, are few and reservations are necessary. Otherwise, there is the lovely little beach resort of Foz do Arelho, five miles west of Caldas da Rainha. The Foz Palace Motel (97413), on the Estrada Marginal, has a restaurant and swimming pool. Double rooms are $31 a night. - M. H. A correction was made on Aug. 20, 1989: Sunday, Late Edition - Final A picture caption on Aug. 6 with an article about buying pottery in Portugal misidentified an animal. It was a rhinoceros, not a hippopotamus.