Pain In My Jaw When I Drink

Villa Rosa

seems that the custom of decorating with tiles facades of buildings begins Spain in the last third of the nineteenth century and remains until the thirties of last century. Strangely, in the commercial and industrial establishments, this decoration was a publicity purposes, with the intention of informing the passer of the genres that I could find in the trade or the establishment dispensing services to its customers. To this end, the artist used to handle visual unambiguous, easily interpretable by a company which at the time, was, lest we forget, a high percentage of illiterates (in 1877, only 28% of the English population was literate.) 1

One of the artists that left more traces in the tile Madrid was the Andalusian Alfonso Romero Mesa, to whom we owe the magnificent tiles "Villa Rosa" in the Plaza de Santa Ana n º 15, Calle Alvarez Gato back .

I read on the Internet that this establishment, "Villa Rosa", opened its doors in 1914 founded by the biting "Farfan" and "penny" and the flagman "Alvarito." Dedicated in his early years to the chip shop and chat, in 1919, two of his waiters, Antonio Torres and Tomas Valverde took the reins of the business. It is in this second stage of "Villa Rosa", when their new owners responsible for Alfonso Romero, the splendid decoration with tiles that yet, and hopefully for many years, is preserved and looks in their facades.

Luis Agromayor, in his book "Madrid Shopping", writes the following about this potter:

" Alfonso Romero was born in Mesa Montellano (Sevilla) in 1882. Began its andadu ra artistic scenery workshop Joaquín Fernández Acosta to arrive later at the factory Mensaque of Triana. Here he met his best teacher Antonio Romero Pelayo and his then partner Enrique Guijarro, in that work later in the workshop of the main street of Madrid. Potter of the Plaza de Toros de las Ventas, School of Mining Engineering, English Press, subway stations and Fronton Recoletos, Romero turns his whole sensibility of his soul creations Indoor estabecimientos free trade. It is a polychrome fantasy world, full of life, immersed in the warm light from the south, whose golden scenes framed with friezes and baroque grotesque cadence ("Villa Rosa", Plaza de Santa Ana 15, Rossell House, General Lacy, 14, Bodegas La Ardosa, Santa Engracia 70 and the beautiful interior of The Gabriels, where he worked with Enrique Guijarro) "

Internet consulting other sources, complete data indicating that in the decade of 30, Romero had his own workshop in Madrid, on Calle Rollo his house and studio and on the street Martínez Izquierdo ovens large format. He died, still young in Madrid in 1940.

This morning I went back to pass "Villa Rosa" and I could not resist the temptation to take photographs of the tiles. Some of these are the ones included in this post from my blog to enjoy their sensitive and educated readers

Manuel Martínez Bargueño

November, 2009 (last update February 2010)

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Thanks. Manuelblas

NOTES 1

.- In the centuries preceding the establishment used to be a "sample" consisting of a sign, wood, metal or other material announcing characters thick on the doors of the shops, the kind of merchandise that was shipped them or craft and profession of those who occupied it, listing absolutely necessary and that literacy was not commonplace.