Posted 10 years ago
austrohung…
(584 items)
This two "botijos" in the shape of dogs were typical in the 1930s Valencia. As I told you when talking about the metal box, Valencia is kind of Spain's traditional source of decorative arts... and apparently it was great during the Art Deco years.
First of all, I'll have to explain what a botijo is, with a little help from wikipedia: "the botijo is a traditional Spanish porous clay container designed to contain water. The botijo has the property that once filled and placed in the sun, it cools the water that it contains, acting as an evaporative cooler. It usually has one mouth where it is filled and one output called "pitorro" to drink from. The botijo is a typical element of Spanish culture and may vary in shape, color and material". On pic 4 you can see a traditional one, but, as the text explains, it may have a lot of shapes, colours and finishings (don't agree with what they say about the "different materials"... it won't work if it's not made of clay)
In this case the mouth is in the dog's ribbon (look at them on pic.3) and the spout is on the dog's nose.
They stand a little over 30 cm... more or less the size of a Whippet or an Italian greyhound (a piccolino).
By the way, I forgot something really important: the dog's design comes from Joaquín Xaudaró, one of the best Spanish cartoonists and illustrators in the 1920s and 1930s, and it was a popular character, so this could be the Spanish equivalent of a mickey mouse jug... :)
stunning!!! beautiful!!
Thanks Sean and vet for you love and comment (Sean):
Please take a look at it again as i have just added more text and one more image.
Thanks aghcollect!!!
Your very welcome austro!!
How adorable!
WOW! They are amazing, and thanks for all the history behind them. Do they have any marks on the base?
Thanks for your love mike, Fran, racer, DrFluffy, Amber and kerry!!!
I have just changed the fourth pic. Now you can see some artoons where the dog appears. As you can see it wasn't a character, but he was in virtually every cartoon Xaudaró made. Some kind of signature item. As for the jokes... most of them are puns, hard to translate into English without extra explanations. I guess the easiest one is the one with the photographer "Will the gentleman please smile, so he won't look like a seal tamer?"
@maryh1956... I guess i should have taken a picture of their bases, although i don't remember them having any marks. In any case they are at "the other house", so I won't be able to do it in several weeks.
very cool!!! beautiful colors!!
Thanks Nordic!!!
Thanks for your love tom, Budek, petey and bracken!!!
Thanks for loving, Vintagefran and ho2cultcha!!!!
Thank you guys for loving!!! ho2cultcha, bratjdd, Amber, Moonstonelo and Virginia!!! I know some of you loved some time ago, but never thanked before.
And I see someone loved twice! :D
We found, amongst Carlos's thing, one of the books by Xaudaró... I'll post about it soon!!!
Love "botijos", there are Spain!!
Great post, thanks for share!
Thanks VIRGINIA!!!