Valsequillo

Hernández Perera (1952), after Gestoso y Pérez (1903), notes a group of similar fonts of Sevillian manufacture and sent to the Canary Islands which includes Breña Alta, Los Sauces, Gáldar (Arucas), La Laguna and Valsequillo [antes en Telde]. According to Hernández Perera (1952) this font would be contemporary with those at Gáldar and at La Laguna, the latter dated by Gestoso Pérez (1903) to ca. 1479. The Cabildo de Tenerife informs that the ceramic fonts were originally made in Seville and believed to have been brought to Tenerife for the baptism of the native Guanches [source: www.puntoinfo.idecnet.com]. Noted in Borras Gualis (1995) as a baptismal font consisting of a basin made of glazed earthenware decorated with ornamental relief; the base is of the twisted-column [torsade] type. The Valsequillo web site [www.grancanaria.com/cabgc/municipios/valsequillo/lugaresdeintereshistoricocultural.htm] describes the font as made of fired green Sevillian porcelain decorated with eagles ["Pila [...] de porcelana de Sevilla, de color verde con águilas talladas [...] realizada a fuego"]. Hernández Socorro [www.culturadecanarias.com/arte//sxv/texartec.html] [accessed 9 October 2006] describes the Valsequillo/Telde font, which was part of the exhibition 'Arte en Canarias (siglos XV-XVI): una mirada retrospectiva', as one of the most noteworthy examples of fired earthenware holy-water stoups [!] of Sevillian origin remaining on our Islands [i.e., the Canary Islands] ["una de las muestras más relevantes de pilas de agua bendita de origen sevillano, realizadas en cerámica vidriada, existentes en las Islas"]