Water vessel (Búcaro), red earthenware, Tonalá, Mexico, 17th century

Water vessel (Búcaro), one of a pair. Red earthenware, with small mouth, the body indented and tapering down into a thin stem with expanded foot.

One of a pair with 286A-1872. Bought from Señor Riano, Madrid for £1 5s. for the pair.

Highly-polished earthenware vessels from Tonalá were not only admired by the colonial settlers but exported to Europe in quantities from the early 17th century. The fashion for bùcaros de Indias (aromatic earthenware from Latin America) is well recorded in accounts and Spanish still-life paintings of the period. The vessels were celebrated for their fine and fragrant clay body, which infused a delicate flavour to the water contained within them. Fashionable Spanish ladies were known to eat small fragments of the bùcaros to benefit from certain gastronomic qualities. The aroma could be enhanced by storing the absorbent clay vessels in boxes scented with spices and oils.

Large, dimpled vessels were used to store water. The increased surface area aided evaporation through the thin walls of the unglazed clay. This served to humidify the hot and dry Spanish air. The process also cooled the remaining liquid and released the celebrated aroma of the clay.

286:1-1872