Coimbra’s tin-glazed earthenware workshops production and tile in 18th century

With unique technique and aesthetic features that are distinct from other centres, the manufactured tin-glazed earthenware produced in the Portuguese town of Coimbra between 16th and 18th centuries shaped the city, its urbanism, its economy and social life, conquering a large diffusion in Portugal as the works preserved in situ can confirm and also in the museums and private collections.

In the 18th century, Coimbra´s faience production persists with great vigour during the whole century, as the historic documentation can tell us by the extensive list of stakeholders related to the established workshops in downtown city. Tiles production seems to have began only at the last quarter of the 17th century being also easily defined in the particular technical and artistic issues related to the local identity of the pottery.

Based on documental data, collected in a research about the manufactured glazed tiles of Coimbra, the present essay will try to give a new contribution about its earthenware workshops (potteries) and its relation with tiles matching the documental and field research results. The main issue will be a technical and artistic definition of 18th century tiles considering all the dynamism of Coimbra´s tin-glazed earthenware production.