Tiles also in the library

Micro-exhibition

• Celebrating Libraries day (24th of October)
• Library room

Small exhibition with books from the historic libary. This year we bring out these books to celebrate Libraries day and to show the relation between or bibliographical and museographical collections. The books selected describe traditional tiles, like the ones keep at the Museum. This autumn we dedicate to the tiles collection this micro-exhibition, as well as the micro-exhibition "Trivets and lead glaze: tile making techniques", and the conferences "Wednesdays of November".

With this exhibition we also want to showcase our bibliographical holdings, which are not usually exhibited, and highlight their importance when studying the Museum collecions and history. The marquis' library holds bibliography contextualizing El Greco, specially El Greco in Toledo, and has its inception at the same time as the Museum, in the beginnigs of the 20th century.

In the Library room we gather the micro-exhibition "Trivets and lead glaze: tile making techniques", three cermaic panels from the Museo de Santa Cruz, and this micro-exhibition for Libraries day, creating a conceptual unit explaining about tiles, and the different ways of viewing and studying them.

Panorama Nacional. Escogidísima Colección de láminas. Tomo I. (National panorama. Selected Collection of Images. Volume 1) Hermenegildo Miralles, 1896

Book with photographic images of monuments, landscapes and scenes from all regions of Spain, Cuba and Philippines, then under the control of the Spanish crown. The images compiled were taken by photographers of renown, like Laurent, Audouard, García, Truyols or Garzón, author of the photo "Room of the beds in the Alhambra of Granada". In this photo the tiled base of the walls remind us of the ones in the Museo del Greco. The same applies to the aliceres (small cut tiles) in the "Bedroom of the Moorish kings in the Alcazar of Seville", constructed by Peter I of Castille. It is impossible not to view the ornamentation of these palaces as the influence of the marquis of Vega-Inclán when designing the Museo del Greco, since he was connected to the Alhambra's board and also helped rebuilt the neighbourhood of Santa Cruz in Seville.

A lo largo del recorrido del Museo se pueden apreciar azulejos de dos momentos: azulejos históricos toledanos de los siglos XV-XVII que se encontraban en la casa antes de convertirse en Museo, y azulejos sevillanos del siglo XX comprados por el marqués de la Vega-Inclán para el Museo cuando reforma la casa. En especial los azulejos sevillanos tienen formas que nos recuerdan a las imágenes superiores, y nos hablan de la influencia de los edificios históricos en la concepción del Museo de nuestro fundador.

Guía Artística: Toledo. Sus Monumentos y el Arte Ornamental. (Artistic Guide: Toledo, its monuments and ornamental art) Manuel González Simancas, 1929.

Guide of the city of Toledo with special mention of the decorative tiles at the tower of the Catedral, recently restored by Rosalina Aguado Gómez. These tiles are from a blue series created in Manises in 1429 with a painting technique. The tiles can be found at the exterior of the tower under small blind arches in the second section of the tower.

Historia general del arte: escrita e ilustrada en vista de los monumentos y de las mejores obras publicadas hasta el día. Tomo V: La ornamentación. (General Art History: Written and Illustrated in View of the Monuments and Best Works Published until Today. Volume 5: Ornamentation). Under the direction of Luis Domènech, 1897

General art history in encyclopaedic format edited by Montaner Simón between 1886 and 1901. The eight volumes contain chromolithographic illustrations. The selected volume is dedicated to ornamentation. The plate, by H. Domenech, reproduces fragments of wall tiles at the Alhambra of Granada, with designs which, once again, we can see in floors and walls at the Museo del Greco.