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You can touch clay. You can smell clay. Gently strike a plate with a fork and you can hear clay. But would you eat clay? If you’re a seventeenth-century European aristocrat, the answer might be yes. Clay, specifically the white clay of Tonalá near the west coast of Mexico, was a material prized for its beauty as well as other perceived qualities. When baked into enormous, ornate búcaros—covered jars—it can be used as a humidifier. And it was believed to be an ingestible medicine, as well, for healthy complexion, birth control, and, as Immaterial host Camille Dungy puts it, “a seventeenth century version of the master cleanse.”
Tonalá is a city where everything revolves around tradition. Because of its rich clay deposits, it is said that the city smells of “pura tierra mojada,” or pure wet dirt. In this episode of Immaterial, we go deep into the legacy of Tonalá clay.
First, you will enter Ceramica Jimón, the studio of ceramicist Fernando Jimón Melchor, who has been keeping his family’s generations-long tradition alive. Then, Met geologist Federico Caró explains the phenomenon that gives wet clay its signature smell. You will meet the búcaros, vessels prized by Spanish colonists and their benefactors across the sea. Margaret Connors McQuade, Head of Collections at the Hispanic Society and Museum, explains just how these objects became so valuable, and Met curator Ronda Kasl explains the enormous significance they had to Spanish culture.
Historian Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra then explains his fascination with the búcaros. What role did they play in unpacking a centuries-old mystery about Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas, one of the most famous artworks in the history of European painting? The answer hinges on—you guessed it—eating clay. Finally, we return to Jimón Melchor’s studio, where he shares the state of Tonalá’s imperiled ceramics tradition, and how he and his family are preserving the art and history of Tonalá for generations to come.
Listen for the whole story, and scroll through the gallery below to take a closer look at The Met’s búcaros and some highlights made from clay in The Met.
