Other Botijo Museums
Botijo Museum of Toral de los Guzmanes (León, Castilla y León)
The Botijo Museum is currently installed in the Guzmanes castle-palace, in the Leonese town of Toral de los Guzmanes. It is considered the largest collection of botijos in the world, with nearly two thousand four hundred pieces on display, from different periods and Spanish potteries. The collection is property of Jesús Gil-Gibernau.
History of the collection
Gil-Gibernau, a lawyer by profession and resident in Navarrete (La Rioja), began collecting the first pieces of the collection in 1991. Most of them are acquisitions, although there are also series given away as a result of the launch of the museum in Toral de los Guzmanes, where you can see a list of donors.
Originally gathered by traveling to the most remote Spanish potteries, for years he has been making his purchases online. Through this system he obtained, as the collector relates among his favorite anecdotes, a Naranjito botijo that was originally bought by some English tourists. A variety of online estate recovery.
In 2007 the collection reached an estimated value of 360,000 euros.
In its 2008 edition, the Guinness Book of Records granted Jesús Gil-Gilbernau the record for the world's largest collection of jugs, with 2,000 examples (the oldest dating back to around 1750), a figure that has subsequently increased.
Exposure
This is a collection of Spanish jugs, with a wide representation of specimens for functional use such as the popular summer jugs made of unglazed white or red clay.
Among the enameled varieties, with a catalog of colors, sizes, shapes and decoration that borders on the unusual but always complies with the law of the three essential elements in a jug: mouth to fill it, spout to drink from and the handle, there are :
- A wide representation of trap jars (with several spouts).
- A series with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic forms in a pre-Columbian style but manufactured in Úbeda (Jaén).
- A valuable collection of ceramic figures from Manises (Valencia), ornamental pieces made with plaster molds.
- The complicated and imaginative charro peacocks.
- More than fifty pieces in which the vine is present in the botijo.
The museum also shows some glass jugs or rich people's jugs, mostly from Barcelona and Mallorca, used in the 19th century as tableware, as well as curious jugs made of wood and metal, cork and metal or just cork, like a ceremonial bridal jug from 1900, made in Higuera de la Sierra (Huelva).
Go to the website of the Botijo Museum of Toral de los Guzmanes →