Valencian Kitchen

The Valencian Kitchen.

This is a late 18th century tiled kitchen from a palace in Valencia (a city and port of the Mediterranean Sea in Spain). It was installed in the Museum in the 1940’s, after the Spanish Civil War, as the palace it once belonged to was destroyed. This kind of kitchen is typical from Valencia city, though most specimens have nowadays disappeared.
The kitchen is composed of more than 1,600 tiles, made in pottery and decorated with painted trompe l’oeil scenes of the everyday life of an aristocrat household.
Valencia was a well known and specialised tile industry that developed in the city itself during the 17th century; by 1750 Valencia was Spain’s major production centre. The remarkable phenomenon of Valencian tilework was the tiled kitchens depicting everyday life scenes.

The Servant.

The principal scene in this kitchen describes the preparations for an evening chocolate party, supervised by the House-Lady. This fact and the richness of the decoration tell us about the importance of this room, probably used not as a real kitchen, but as a meeting place for the Lady and her friends.
The walls are plenty of painted fresh food (hares, rabbits, lambs, gooses, partridges, fish, etc) and kitchen tools. A servant is back from the market with a basket filled with vegetables and fishes. Also, there is a representation of the Holy Virgin of Carmen, the Virgin of the sailors, protecting the well. This is a local custom, because this representation is also a protection against the fevers as cholera.
At the shelves in the room there is a selection of different vases and pots on painted pottery from Spanish workshops. These are related with some of the vases depicted at the kitchen walls.
The kitchen provides a unique example of a late 18th century chocolate party. This event is related with the social life and leisure of the high class.
Also the visitors can have a view of the organization of an important household, the different type of food, kitchen tools, pots and vases and the tableware used at the houses of this period.

The sub scene depicting Lady and Servant was chosen for the presentation of the first ARtSENSE-prototype at SIMESITEM 2012.

Find more information about the Valencian Kitchen here.