Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Glasgow
Fidélités trompeuses: la consommation des soieries à Madrid, 1759-1788
The essay examines Spanish royal wardrobe accounts and notarial records, and French commercial correspondence, to investigate what types of silks were being consumed in 18th-century Madrid, where they came from, and the extent to which the Cinco Gremios Mayores (the major Spanish mercers) were able to control Spanish production and consumption. It reveals that French silks were readily available, even though the Spanish monarchy was intent on promoting its own manufacturing centres, and that the heir to the throne often combined French and Spanish textiles in the same garment. [On the whole Spanish and French historiographies have remained separate.]