Historically, La Rambla has been a pottery-making town, as the signposts that welcome visitors to the village suggest. This dedication is based on the existence in the surroundings of numerous clay deposits of excellent quality for its transformation into potter’s clay. However, over the years, the best quarries have been depleted, while the prices of clay brought from other areas fell, which for a time threatened to bring an end to red clay pottery, as it was traditionally known.

Fortunately, a group of artisans managed to get the town council to allow them to extract clay from La Rambla in a controlled and punctual manner, so that they could continue working with it. The importance of the clay obtained lies in its high salinity. The earth itself contains a high degree of salinity, but in the basins where the raw material is prepared, even more salt is added, so that the resulting clay, although with a reddish colour, changes to white after firing due to salt crystallisation.

Given the initial reddish colour of the earthenware, this type of pottery is called “red earthenware pottery”, to distinguish it from “white earthenware pottery”, which was introduced later and was intended for painted pottery. However, as mentioned above, the fired pieces have a whitish colour, with a light layer of white powder on the surface. This colour is obtained thanks to the salt contained in the clay, which also allows the earthenware to breathe, making it perfect for cooling water in jugs or pitchers. This particular characteristic is what made pottery from La Rambla famous; the quality of its products, together with the unique characteristics of the clay used, as well as a singular colouring, allowed it to reach countless Spanish homes, where every summer the botijo (earthenware pitcher) was indispensable for cooling water.

Thanks to the historical relevance and the great demand for pottery products, which constituted an indispensable element in domestic life during the last century, the number of pottery workshops in La Rambla grew throughout the 20th century at the same rate as demand. As a result, there are few people in this town who have not had direct or indirect contact with the world of pottery. It is easy to find those who were apprentices and then left, those who work in one of the auxiliary industries or those who worked in someone else’s workshop and then set up their own.

According to data from the Association of Artisans of La Rambla, in 2010 there were more than seventy active ceramic workshops or factories. Outside La Rambla, no other centre of such importance can be found in the whole province of Cordoba or in the neighbouring regions; only in the city of Seville and Granada we can find ceramic centres of similar importance to this one. Its products were sold throughout Spain and found their way into many homes in the form of earthenware jugs, vessels, pots, flowerpots and money boxes. Nowadays, production has diversified and red earthenware pottery is in a secondary position compared to other types of ceramic production in La Rambla, but despite this it continues to be a clear distinguishing feature.

Other outstanding pottery centres in Andalusia that still produce today are: Alhabia, Sorbas and Nijar, in Almería, Úbeda, Bailén and Andújar, in Jaén, Guadix and the city of Granada, where the well-known Crámica de Fajalauza is popular, with characteristic designs in shades of green or blue, Carmona, Lora and La Puebla de Cazalla in Seville, where the Pottery of La Cartuja is also famous, Lucena, Pozoblanco and Hinojosa del Duque in Córdoba, or Cortegana in Huelva, among other localities.

Artesano fabricando botijos. Photo: José Miguel Mejías del Río. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Alisando la superficie de la hucha. Photo: José Miguel Mejías del Río. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Dando forma a la pella. Photo: José Miguel Mejías del Río. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Hornos. Photo: José Miguel Mejías del Río. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Museo de la Cerámica. La Rambla. Andalucía Turismo y Deporte www.andalucia.org

Turismo La Rambla. (2020). Rutas Turísticas de La Rambla-Ruta de la Cerámica-La Artesanía Rambleña. [Video File].