Bust of Don Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea

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The Count of Aranda's ambitious drive to develop the arts in his native Spain was a rare large-scale faience portrait that embodied his progressive tastes and influenced the factory's practices and output. Don Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, 10th Count of Aranda (1718-1799), was a well-travelled man of the Enlightenment who spent over a decade at the courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI. He inherited the prosperous Spanish ceramics factory at Alcora on his father's death in 1742, and his varied career began with military success. Later, he spent large periods of time travelling or in diplomatic service as Spanish Ambassador to Portugal, Poland, and France. While abroad, Aranda studied military tactics in Prussia and visited Dresden, Paris, and Vienna. It is highly likely that he was inspired by the fine porcelain produced by Augustus III's factory at nearby Meissen during his stay in Dresden. The chief modeller there, J.J. Mellor, presumably sculpted a French original of Aranda, which would have been a neoclassical style bust. The Alcora portrait is very much in this 18th-century French style and has a fine quality that suggests it was based upon a French original produced from life in France. If this is the case, it would be reasonable to assume that the original was sculpted in Paris during Aranda's time as Ambassador there. There does not appear to be any documentary evidence recording the author of the present model or the date it was produced. Wilson Frothingham attributed the model to Julián López, who was the master of sculptural work at Alcora. Records describe him as 'maestro principal d'buxante, tallista y modelista'. The present bust is of an unusually impressive size and would have taken considerable skill to model and fire. In the final third of the eighteenth century, Alcora concentrated on producing three different types of ceramic body; a refined faience, Tierra de pipa to emulate fashionable English creamware, and soft-paste porcelain. The earliest example of the Count of Aranda bust seems to be modelled in an unusual clay body termed Loza Blanca in Spanish, decorated with a white opaque glaze and coloured enamels (held by the Hispanic Society of America). It is possible that the present bust could perhaps be the missing example which was once held at Alcora. The body of the present bust is of faience type, suggesting that it could date to a period closely following the Hispanic Society example. A probable date for the present bust would be between about 1775 and 1777 – if it had been modelled after this date presumably it would have incorporated the Order of the Holy Spirit, awarded to Aranda in 1777. If López was the modeller, by the latter part of the 1780s he was recorded by the factory director as being 'subject to fits, very old, and his head none to steady', making it unlikely to have been produced at this time. Two more models of this size are known, but these are thought to be later as they have Tierra de pipa or creamware bodies and transparent glaze. Wilson Frothingham notes that both are left in the white and closer to the creamware perfected towards the end of the century, and she dates them to circa 1789-99, although if this is the case, it seems odd that these models would not have been adopted by a repairer at Alcora to include the Order of the Holy Spirit, which Aranda had been given in 1777. A biscuit version of the bust, coloured black, is illustrated by Wilson Frothingham, ibid., 1960, p. 44 (where it is listed as being in the collection of the Duke and Duchess of Alba). Later versions of the bust have survived, although these examples have been adapted to incorporate the addition of the Order of the Holy Spirit, given to Aranda in 1777.