Title

Screen from Cathedral of Ávila

blacksmith

Ávila, Llorente de

Francés, Juan (France, ? - Toledo, ?)

Generic classification

Object

Date

Century

Cultural context / style

Material

Technique

Provenance

Current location

Inventory Number in Current Collection

Inscriptions / Marks

"Fizo esta obra maestre Ioan Francês maestre maior de las obras de fierro"

Object history

This screen from the cathedral of Ávila was acquired in 1879 by the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria & Albert Museum). In the references that accompanied the acquisition, the value of the piece was realised due to the fact that at the beginning of the 16th centuries Ávila had an excellent master blacksmith, Juan Francés. At that time the active workshop of this grating maker had already been documented, thanks to an entry in the Chapter Minutes, dated 15 May 1500, whereby ‘rental houses with their corral were taken to carve the grilles of the church m. e Juan Françes con sus fraguas’, receiving for his work in 1502 “a large sum of maravedis”. This information was echoed by Gómez-Moreno who, after visiting the cathedral in the early years of the 20th century to produce the Catálogo Monumental de la Provincial de Ávila, alluded to a grille by Juan Francés that had been sold: ’ It also seems that it was his work and signed with his name, with the epithet of ‘master builder of ironwork’, as he used to do, a very large grille, sold some years ago, and that perhaps was removed from the choir, when under Charles III the current bronze ones were installed, cast in Biscay’ (Gómez-Moreno, 1983, p. 124). Perhaps then, the dismantled grille was removed to other areas of the cathedral.

Gómez-Moreno offers other clues that may be of interest in relation to the possible ancestry of this work: ‘Another one from the same school, a little more advanced, closes the chapel of the Caves in the cloisters; it is undoubtedly the work of Lloreinte or Lorençio de Ávila, who worked for the Cathedral all his life and is known to have made, among other things, the grille of the main chapel, which no longer exists, around 1530’ (Gómez-Moreno, p. 124).

According to what we have been able to document in the Victoria & Albert Museum archive, in 1879 the acquisition of various fragments of a grille from the cathedral of Ávila is recorded; it is noted that they were in a side chapel, that they were in the transitional Gothic style and that one of the pieces was signed by the master craftsman Juan Francés: ‘Screen. Portions of a screen or ‘reja’ from one of the lateral chapels in the Cathedral of Avila [...] in the transitional Gothic style'; it is also noted that one of the fragments has the following inscription: “Fizo esta obra maestro Joan Francês maestro maior de las obras de fierro”, “Spanish. About 1490, various dimensions”. (V&A Museum, Archive, MA/30/113).

Master Juan Francés renewed the aesthetic and formal approaches to the art of ironwork from his workshop in Ávila, at a time when the cathedral underwent a major renovation, under the patronage of Bishop Alonso Carrillo de Albornoz (Parrado del Olmo, pp. 249-356). Juan Francés stood out for his ironwork in the transition between the 15th and 16th centuries; a few years later it would be Llorente de Ávila (or Lorenzo de Ávila) who would take up the baton from him, continuing the work and undertaking various ironwork projects for the cathedral. thus, for example, the Libros de fábrica of 12 October 1521 give news of payments made to this ironworker for grilles he has made for chapels located behind the choir (Gallego Miguel, pp. 594-595). The author does not rule out that among the various pieces from Ávila cathedral preserved in the V&A Museum there are eloquent testimonies to the work of Juan Francés, as is the case of the frieze signed by the master ironworker, but also other pieces attributed to Llorente de Ávila.

These fragments of railings, 49 parts in total, were acquired by the museum through the French antique dealer Mrs Halphen, thanks to the work as intermediary of the painter and antiques dealer John Charles Robinson (V&A Museum. Archive, MA/1/11282).

Description

The screen that we currently see in one of the central galleries of the Victoria & Albert Museum is just a part of a work that must have been larger. The British institution acquired 49 pieces, weighing 600 kg. It features decorative motifs typical of Renaissance aesthetics, such as medallions, grotesques, plant scrolls... The work was created at a time when Avila ironwork had reached a high level of development and appreciation, thanks to the workshop originally set up by Juan Francés and the master who succeeded him in the ironwork business in the city, and with whom he had to collaborate on some projects: Llorente de Ávila.

Locations

• ca. 1879

  cathedral

  Cathedral of Ávila, Ávila (Spain)

• 1879

  dealer/antiquarian

  Mr. Halphen (France) *

• 1879

  dealer/antiquarian

  Sir John Charles Robinson, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1879 - present

  museum

  Victoria & Albert Museum, London (United Kingdom)