L’Alcora Ceramics: 19th and 20th centuries

After some decades of constant production and many social upheavals (the Revolta dels Caragols in 1801, the Independence War from 1808 to 1814 and the Trienio Liberal from 1820 to 1823) it starts a decadence period in the Factory until the brothers Matías and Ramón Girona leased it (in 1851) and then bought it (in 1858). They applied a technique called transfer printing which is used on industrial ceramics decoration and allows a decrease in the prices.
L’Alcora was one of the first places in Spain where the technique of transfer printing was applied. This technique was known in England since the 18th century and arrived to l’Alcora when Francesco Rolandi was hired in 1819. On 10 May 1819 the Duke of Híjar requested the patent for the production of stamped earthenware in Spain for 12 years, but the application had no answer because of the abolition of some of the privileges of the nobility during the period of the Trienio Liberal.
In spite of everything, the application of the technique on porcelain and earthenware lasted until the late 19th century with the occasional help of foreign technicians from Saint Petersburg, Staffordshire and Bristol. The transfer printing technique coexisted with the production of white or discretely defined ceramic which had ornamental series inherited from the glorious past of the Factory.
In 1895 the Fàbrica Gran (as it was then known) became property of Cristóbal Aicart, its last owner. Shell-shaped earthenware jugs or globular bottles are some of the pieces that this period left to the history of a factory that was active for more than two centuries.