Real_Fábrica_del_Buen_Retiro
Real Fábrica del Buen Retiro (popularly called La China; "Royal Buen Retiro Porcelain Factory"; alternatively, Real Fábrica de Porcelana del Buen Retiro) was a porcelain manufacturing factory in Spain. It was located in Madrid's Parque del Buen Retiro, Madrid on a site near the Fuente del Ángel Caído.
The factory began by moving the Capodimonte porcelain factory from Naples in 1760, after its founder there had inherited the Spanish throne as Carlos III of Spain. He took the equipment and about 40 key workers, including Giuseppe Gricci (c. 1700–1770), the main modeller, and nearly five tons of porcelain paste. Since the paste, the main artists, and the fleur-de-lys factory mark, were all used by both factories, distinguishing between their products from the years around the move can be very difficult. The factory continued to make soft paste porcelain until 1803, when it switched to hard-paste porcelain; some pieces made were in fact creamware, an English style of fine earthenware.[1]
The factory concentrated on figurines, especially of classical subjects, but also made tablewares and decorative vessels such as vases and pots. Porcelain rooms were installed at three royal palaces. Initially Gricci's style remained similar to the elegant Rococo of his Naples works, but soon the newly-fashionable Neoclassicism became dominant, which remained the case throughout the life of the factory.
After the disruptions of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1817 the factory moved a short distance across Madrid to become the Royal Factory of La Moncloa, again taking such moulds and equipment as survived, and the employees. This operated until 1849.