Spanish

Spanish furniture carries an inheritance the rest of Europe does not have. Eight centuries of Islamic rule left a vocabulary of geometry, tilework, lustre and inlay that survived the Reconquista and reappeared in Christian churches and courts — which is why Spanish work reads as more ornamental and less classical than its French or English equivalents.

The aesthetic is warm and surface-led. Lustre ceramics, painted and gilded wood, wrought iron, and a preference for pattern over proportion. Where Italian work decorates a form, Spanish work often covers it, and the effect is closer to textile than to architecture.

The tradition regionalises sharply. Castilian work is courtly and austere, Catalan work is industrial and modern — Modernisme is a national movement in a way that Spanish furniture otherwise never was — and the ceramics tradition runs continuously from Valencia through to the twentieth century.

The Baroque (17th–18th century) is the Spanish century: carved and gilded wood, ecclesiastical scale, and lustre ceramics.

Modernisme (1890–1910) is Catalan and industrial — Gaudí's circle, organic forms, and forged ironwork.

The ceramics tradition runs underneath both, from Valencia's lustre ware to the factory production that replaced it.