Cantirer fent fornada

Topic: This mural describes one of the most delicate moments of the production process: the stoneware in the middle of cooking.

Elements: The image illustrates the moment when the stonemason feeds with a bundle of wood, usually olive branches, the mouth of the oven, as was traditionally done, and thus increases the temperature for the cooking of the pieces of black ceramic inside. Right next to the mouth of the oven we can see a pair of black armchairs, and the fact is that black ceramics are the hallmark of the town. Verdú was declared a Craft Interest Zone by the Generalitat de Catalunya for the black ceramics, which today are only made in Quart and Verdú.

Style: Between figurative and realistic.

Symbolism: Representation of an activity specific to stonemasons.

Ordered: Personal work.

Historical context: The first stonemason documented as a master stonemason was Antoni Guash, in 1495. In the Book of Estimates (1549) fourteen stonemasons are recorded, and in the middle of the 17th century, at the time when the Confraternity of Sant Hippolytus, there were around thirty workers, a number that remained until the 19th century. With the arrival of refrigerators, in the 1950s there was a great crisis in the quarrying industry. Little by little, practical and utilitarian ceramics give way to artistic decorative pieces. The importance of Verdú ceramics has been distinguished for the production of pieces intended for the storage of water: funnels, cossiols, gibrells, watering cans, ambúrnias, measures, troughs and feeding troughs.

Curiosities: The Sambolas are a family that comes from France and settled in Verdú at the end of the 16th century. From 1664 it is already known that there were stonemasons in the family. Despite the various family branches throughout different generations, today we find the brothers Francesc and Magí, descendants of this long lineage, as ceramists who share a workshop in Carrer de Sant Miquel.