Production technology and techno-historical value in faience azulejos

Abstract

Aloïs Riegl in The Modern Cult of Monuments, originally published in 1903, was one of the first to ascribe a historical value to the results of a technology when he stated that even a torn-off slip of paper with a short unimportant note contains historical value for the development of paper manufacturing, script and writing materials. Glazed ceramic tiles (azulejos in Portuguese) are widely appreciated and studied for their artistic content. Their historical value is dully recognized but research deals mostly with the painting, the use of colour, the subjects or designs depicted in historiated or pattern panels and the purpose of their use over time. There is however an important historical value in their technology. The present text makes an overview of the pre-industrial technology of tile-making and offers some examples of how the historical content in that technology can be extracted and interpreted.