Bartolomé Sureda y Miserol (1769–1851) was a Spanish manager of several royal artistic enterprises. He served as director of the

Real Fábrica del Buen Retiro Real Fábrica del Buen Retiro (popularly called ''La China''; "Buen Retiro Porcelain Factory"; alternatively, Real Fábrica de Porcelana del Buen Retiro) was a porcelain manufacturing factory in Spain. It was located in Madrid's Parque del Buen Ret ...

and later the successor

Royal Factory of La Moncloa Royal Factory of La Moncloa (Spanish: ''Real Fábrica de La Moncloa''; variations: Moncloa Porcelain Factory, or Royal Porcelain Factory and Thin Earthenware of the Moncloa, or Real Fábrica de Loza de la Moncloa) ( es, Real Fábrica de La Moncl ...

, both making

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

in Madrid, as well as the Real Fábrica de Paños in Guadalajara, and the Real Fábrica de Cristales de La Granja, this making glass.

Biography

Sureda was trained in France in 1800 in the manufacture of porcelain and textiles. He returned to Spain in 1803, where he was made initially the Director of Labour, and the Director of the Real Fábrica del Buen Retiro in 1807; here he developed

hard-paste porcelain Hard-paste porcelain, sometimes "true porcelain", is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature, usually around 1400 °C. It was first made in China ...

which helped in quality production and financial improvement of the company. With the French invasion in 1808 and eventual destruction of the factory in 1812, Sureda returned to France. He was known to be in Mallorca in 1817 and was involved in manufacturing "worsted cloth." He was recalled to Madrid to head the Real Fábrica de Paños in Guadalajara and was also given the charge as acting director of the Real Fabrica de la Moncloa. In 1817, Buen Retiro's successor became the new Royal Porcelain Factory at Moncloa. All the employees of the destroyed factory were reemployed in the new one, and Sureda returned to be its director until 1820. In 1822, he became director of the Real Fábrica de Cristales de La Granja. After his retirement from the royal service on 13 November 1829, he moved back to Mallorca. He was recalled to Buen Retiro from Paris, on 2 September 1803 and as per records he started working in the factory from October 1803. This establishes the dating of the portraits of Sureda and his wife, painted by

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

and dated 1803-1808; the costume worn for the portrait is of 1799 vintage which also establishes the dates. When he worked in Buen Retiro, Sureda used for his porcelain works all the materials required in hard-paste porcelain, similar to that used in Sèvres porcelain, except for the

kaolin Kaolinite ( ) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is an important industrial mineral. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral ...

and calcined Scapolite, its substitute;

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

was not used by him in his works. He used pure

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) felds ...

flux (

obtained from

Colmenar de Oreja Colmenar de Oreja is a town and municipality of the Las Vegas comarca, in the Community of Madrid, Spain. It was subject to a seven-month siege in 1139. Location It is located in the hydrographic plateau of the rivers Tagus and Tajuña, ...

) for glazing. He drew raw materials from sites close to Madrid,

Vallecas Vallecas was a municipality of Spain that disappeared as such in 1950, when its annexation to the Municipality of Madrid was effectuated. Nowadays it is a large neighborhood of Madrid composed of two districts: Puente de Vallecas (population ...

’s scapolite and Galagar's

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

. The magnesium paste developed by him, which he used extensively in the manufacture of Buen Retiro Porcelain was considered unique for its chemical composition which permitted firing under varying temperatures. He followed

’s style of painting, and after he retired to Mallorca devoted his time to his life’s ambition of painting of landscapes, religious themes and general scenes. He died on 10 March 1851. His son Alejandro Sureda became a noted architect.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sureda y Miserol, Bartolome Spanish artisans 1769 births 1851 deaths People from Palma de Mallorca