At a much later date, not before the eighteenth century probably, a good deal of opaque white glass, in imitation of porcelain, was made at Barcelona. At South Kensington may be seen a series of quadrangular flasks of this material with bevelled edges, about six inches in height. These flasks—they probably served to hold essences and spirits—are somewhat rudely painted with floral designs in bright primitive colours—red, blue, and yellow. Both in India and Persia we come across examples of glass decorated with ‘painted’ enamels, almost identical in shape and size with these Spanish bottles. Not only these, but some of the sherbet-jugs and coffee-cups of this milky glass, that are still often found in many parts of the East, may well have come from this district. It will be remembered, however, that a very similar ware was made about the same time both in France and at Venice. Other towns in Catalonia, as Cervelló, Almatret, and above all Mataró, became famous for their glass in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There is more than one record of distinguished foreign princes who were conducted in royal galleys to visit the glass-works of this last town. M. Schuermans has discovered the names of more than twenty Italians from L’Altare or from Venice, who found their way to Spain, in some cases by way of Flanders. At Lisbon, too, in the seventeenth century, there were many foreign glass-makers, Muranese, Altarists, and Flemings. At Cadalso, in the province of Toledo, glass-furnaces were at work as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century; indeed they are said at that time to have supplied the whole kingdom of Castile. At these works, at a somewhat later time, the Italian influence became very strong, and no doubt many Muranese or Altarists were employed. Before the end of the seventeenth century, the general decline so noticeable in all the industries of Spain spread, it would seem, to the glass-works. Workmen were now obtained chiefly from the Low Countries, and in addition much glass was imported by sea from Antwerp. To how low a state the glass industry had fallen at this time may be inferred from the fact that orders for ‘Mexico and the Indies’ had to be executed abroad. In the next century, when Spain had lost her Flemish possessions, their place as a source of glass-ware was taken by France. Philip V., about the year 1720, founded a royal glass manufactory near his summer palace of La Granja de S. Ildefonso, and workmen were gathered together from all sources—there were Germans and Swedes as well as Frenchmen. These works were above all established, in rivalry to St. Gobain (p. 235), for the preparation of large mirrors of plate-glass, but all sorts of ‘hollow ware’ were also produced there. This later Spanish glass, made to royal order, is, however, utterly devoid of any interest, and it need not detain us. CHAPTER XVI