When did faience production begin in Coimbra?

The earliest documentary reference to faience production in Coimbra dates from 1603, although manufacture may have begun some years earlier, given the city's pottery tradition, well documented from the early sixteenth century.

What is «ratinho» ware?

It is the popular faience that dominated Coimbra's production in the nineteenth century, decorated with a sponge using floral motifs, fish, birds and figures of peasants. It owes its name to the «ratinhos», workers from the Beira region who migrated seasonally to the Ribatejo and the Alentejo and used it at table.

Where can collections of Coimbra faience be seen?

The Machado de Castro National Museum, in the city itself, holds one of the most important collections of Portuguese blue faience of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including pieces from the earliest Coimbra workshops.

Coimbra Faience

Coimbra faience is one of the longest and most prestigious pottery traditions in Portugal, spanning almost four centuries of the production of earthenware with a tin glaze. A centre favoured by its location — beside the Mondego, which linked the interior to the coast and to the trade routes — the city brought together a vast community of potters whose work evolved from the learned blue-and-white ware of the seventeenth century to the immensely popular faience known as «ratinho» in the nineteenth century. The earliest documentary reference to its manufacture dates from 1603, although Coimbra’s pottery is attested from the early sixteenth century.

From seventeenth-century blue ware to the «gold» of the eighteenth century

In the first half of the seventeenth century, Portuguese faience made its mark through the original adaptation of Oriental ornamental motifs, painted in cobalt blue on a white ground, in what was a European response to the Chinese porcelain imported by the East India Company. The first faience factory in Coimbra, set up in the Terreiro da Erva, in the centre of the city, dates back to this century; some of its pieces are preserved today in the Machado de Castro National Museum. Alongside this production, the tradition of the seventeenth-century pattern azulejo also developed, which shared workshops and painters with the tableware.

The first half of the eighteenth century was the golden age of Coimbra faience. Workshops multiplied and the ware was exported to the Algarve and even to England. From this phase, the style attributed to the Brioso family is celebrated, a dynasty of potters related to the Paiva and the Leal families, who painted plates in blue and white with central themes inspired by the single-figure azulejo. The identification of pieces nonetheless remains difficult: the potters rarely signed their work, and similar models circulated among the various family workshops of the Ancien Régime.

The «ratinho» and the popular ware of the nineteenth century

Coimbra faience is distinguished by having crossed, without rupture, the passage from ceremonial ware to ware for popular use — a continuity rare in the European pottery landscape.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, the decoration gradually freed itself from the centre of the plate, spreading across the whole surface with the technique of sponge painting. From this evolution was born the «ratinho» faience, which dominated the Coimbra nineteenth century and continued into the early twentieth. Decorated with floral motifs, fish, birds, peasants, musicians, fishermen and shepherds, this cheap and cheerful ware — sometimes called «troca-trapos» — owes its name to the ratinhos, the workers from the Beira region who migrated seasonally to the cornfields of the Ribatejo and the Alentejo and wished to have their own plate at the table of the great estates. In 1886, there were eleven ceramics factories in Coimbra, producing both the «ratinho» and the fine faience still recognised today.

Meaning and continuity

Coimbra faience is part of the great history of Portuguese ceramics and faience and holds its own place among the Portuguese decorative arts, alongside silverware, furniture and the azulejo. Its most common production, Coimbra ware, continues to be made by a small number of artisans who preserve the traditional painting of the «ratinho» plate, ensuring the transmission of a centuries-old craft. In the city that is also the seat of the University of Coimbra, the Machado de Castro National Museum keeps the oldest witnesses of this art, making it possible to follow, piece by piece, the evolution of one of the richest ceramic traditions in the country.