GARCÍA, Miguel Herrero (2014). Los Tejidos en la España de los Austrias: Fragmentos de un diccionario. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (CEEH). ISBN: 978-84-15245-41-4. Softback, 283 pp., b/w and colour illustrations, bibliography. Price: c. €29 (excluding tax).
This is a companion book to Miguel GARCÍA's detailed study of dress during the Habsburg period in Spanish history (basically the 16th -17th centuries; see above). According to the publishers this detailed study identifies and analyses 196 textiles that were used by various Spanish courts and officials during the 16th and 17th centuries. However, this is not the case. The author has used contemporary documentation, literature and so forth to record and present written information and sources about particular terms. It is a dictionary of terms, not an analysis of the textiles themselves.
The book looks at silk as well as woollen textiles and presents information about the terms used to describe these textiles. In addition, there is a chapter on Spanish embroidery from the period.
The book is well-illustrated with both portraits of people wearing the relevant garments as well as more than sixty textiles in museum and private collections in Spain and elsewhere. A number of the pieces illustrated in the book are related in some manner to the Catholic Church (notably in the form of vestments).
Recommendation: As with Garciá’s other book, this volume should be in any serious library about textiles, especially one concentrating on European textiles and garments from the 16th and 17th centuries. It is well worth dipping into, even for those whose Spanish is not fluent.
Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood
