Bookends are some of those objects, increasingly lacking in usefulness, that current civilization is erasing from everyday life. Some generations are surely already unaware of its existence or the meaning of the word.
Any heavy thing that is more or less square-shaped can be used as a bookend. But some bookends have also been objects of art, until now unfortunately undervalued in academic studies.
This work addresses a small part of his already long career in the artistic world. It is reduced to those of a single material: porcelain, and to those of a single factory: the "Fábrica de porcelana y refractarios Víctor de Nalda", in Almácera, north of Valencia.
And what is the reason for this delimitation? Many porcelain brands have created bookends for their object catalogues. But the case of Nalda is surprising because of the number of bookends that came out of its ovens in a short space of time: only between 1955 and 1971 and because of its decorative technique.
With images of all the models whose existence we know for now, the work reveals, in addition to its sculptural appearance, the use of the slip technique in its decoration. Nalda's bookends are an example of the splendor of slips in artistic porcelain.
Copyright of the text and images: Antonio Ten Ros. All rights reserved.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12368.28169
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