J.A.S. collector
story of a passion

n Who is  JAS, could you introduce yourself?

J.A.S.: I am a businessman. From 1946 on I built and sold in Europe quality furniture in solid oak and walnut and mostly of Spanish style. I developed my professional activity around the decorative arts, and my initial training, in industrial mechanics, produced on me this interest in antique handcrafts.

In my teens, in the late 30´s, I became interested in art and antiques, no doubt influenced by my maternal grandfather who was an antiquarian, an activity that I decided to continue. My hobby in collecting also extends to other fields, apart from the antique wrought iron, I have a collection of postcards and photographs, tools, watches, coins, bronzes, etc., but my main interest was mainly the forged and filed blacksmithing and locksmithing, when there still were interesting pieces.Taking this opportunity I would like to cite the beautiful poetic prose of the museum curator, Catherine Vaudour: "Iron is the material of all contrasts, opposed to copper and gold, where the color evokes the sun, therefore, the light is the day and the life. Iron is the element of shadows that recalls the night, the absence and the death. Shadow is just a transition between the light and the darkness, between the cosmos and the chaos. Similarly, iron is not dark oin its natural darkness.It  absorbs the light with subtle reflections on the gaps of its roughness. Smooth and polished, it becomes as alive as silver and it can be at the level of the richness of precious metals. The value of this material increases with the manipulation. The beauty of greys is not inferior to that of gold. The gates were closed  at the sunset , the balconies, from the inside, drew their black interlaced over a background of landscapes. The bars in the apses of chapels, guarding treasures, the badges against the light at the bottom of the sky, his calligraphy through the skylights where the chiaroscuro dialogue ..."(1)

 What is the content of your museum? Can you introduce it?

J.A.S.: This is a collection of nearly 4,500 antique wrought iron pieces covering a period of more than seven centuries. I have collected these objects, evidence of our civilization, which blacksmiths, behind an absolute anonymity, made with a talent and energy out of the ordinary, considering that in those days they had few resources. Making a chest lock, a lock cabinet or a series of  balcony bars, demanded a lot of time working in very hard conditions. Domestic civilian objects, locks and keys, door nails, hinges, door knobs, knockers,  balusters, etc.., everything needed for the front door or the cabinet, the daily full of culture and symbolism, and even of poetry.

These objects speak to us, our ancestors are speaking to us through them. They have certainly developed a technical function, but they are also signs of a social status, an outward sign of wealth or power, the reflect of a period that can be Romanesque, Gothic, Plateresque, Renaissance or Baroque. The great Islamic influence for nearly seven centuries in Spain, it is clearly apparent in the style of the piece set, which the History of Art calls "Mudejar".

They are a tangible sign of the good work of a secular effort, but also that characterizes the human condition. Our desire to believe in beauty, art, makes us realize not only the role they play in a door or in a facade, but they are the result of long and laborious process of manufacture, which begins with the extraction of the iron mineral and that involves several trades. The blacksmiths´ creative power was developed by following technical guidelines and was influenced by the culture of that time. Blacksmiths combined the four elements, iron, fire, air and water into the furnace of his forge.This alchemy created a legendary figure, endowed with physical and occult powers helped by the gods.

About 15 years ago, I mounted the pieces on easily transportable panels, installed in a dozen of rooms in the  mansion of my maternal ancestors; it is easily dismountable in order to be moved and displayed elsewhere.

When and how did you build up the collection?

J.A.S.: It has been a great quest  for nearly seventy years and it comes mostly from the Iberian Peninsula and partly from France. A big amount of  constancy, a lot of effort and emotion, many thousands of kilometres covered and big expenses have been required; please understand me, the acquisition of a wrought iron culture, of great joy, sometimes of disappointments, like any human enterprise, but the first an inexplicable desire is to present a complete overview of this issue. My passion for wrought iron has been gradually known and I have been offered, from the most unexpected places, antique irons I didn´t always acquired. All the pieces I present were not, obviously, in the condition you see them; some of the were rusty, some twisted or broken, most blackened or worn by use. With patience and knowledge they were set in order of exposure by respecting and reflecting their original production, their shapes and the work of the artists who created the pieces.

A difficult question for a collector, what is the future of your treasure?

J.A.S.: Everything in human life has got an end, what I possess, you are right, you should never forget that it is a great collection "I was born naked and I´ll die naked". We must learn to get rid of some loved things; after a time of collecting and preserving a heritage that has given me so much joy, a new time comes, that of the transmission. Helped by my children, whose interests are focused on other issues, I have decided to get rid of this museum today or tomorrow. I´d prefer that it remained clustered as much as possible; it can be purchased by a cultural institution that appreciates a rich iron heritage or by a  particular collector provided with the relevant means.

(1)     Catalog of the exposition Forge et Forgerons, jeux d'ombres et de lumière,  Val d'Oise Museum, 2007-2008, Valhermeil éditions, 64p.

The contents of the museum in
figures

¢ More than 400 different, complete bolts between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. More than 330 different balusters or wrought bars, twisted, punched, embossed with some square, cylindrical and salomonical sectors in the same unit; many of them are handy engraved, with exquisite "artichokes", with all its bases and rings worked by fire, between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Over 180 door knockers, partly with true figures of human limbs, lions, dogs, reptiles, birds and several animals, also of disk or washer, of hammer, turned with lime, etc.., All of them have got their anvils and they are uneven in design, between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries. About 850 nails of one, two or three different bodies and forged by fire, precious, antique, engraved, embossed and filed.

More than 400 large and medium keys, selected according to their format and with complicated teeth, between the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Over 350 forged and limed hinges and strap hinges, with graceful drawings and multiple drafts, between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries. 70 interesting keyholes, pierced and partly embossed. More than 120 latches and  large door-bolts, between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. About 150 nice, pierced, engraved and very worked door handles of oscillating shell or knob.

More than 300 cut, pierced and very limed sheet corners; they were necessary squares to enforce coffers, large chests and furniture between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries. 80 special, wrought and limed door knockers, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

It also includes about 1000 different and chosen objects, among which there are several ethnographic tools such as grids of convents, large and medium scales, large and small stocks for bears, twisted and beautiful andirons, struts or large and resourceful supports, a variety of tools, household tools, collars, knives, forge bellows... between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.

All the pieces are submitted for display, they are set between artistic columns on woody pannels covered with fabric of colours; the collection is completely movable, since the whole columnar assembly is coupled with concealed fasteners for assembly or disassembly.

A museum of Spanish blacksmithing

in Navarre

 
n In the course of the 7^th Symposium on European forging in Arthous (France), a few dozen of us were lucky to discover Chilida-leku. On this occasion, I had the privilege, thanks to Arnaud Duny-Petre, an enthusiast about blacksmithing, to make a second trip to Spain to discover a private collection. We arrived in Navarre, about 90 kilometres south of Pamplona, in a community of 8,000 souls.The steeples of two baroque churches dominate the historic city center and the bright sunshine illuminates the ocher lining of its small brick palaces.The personalised facades, adorned wiith door nails, wrought balconies, window bars, doorknockers... all kept in place; also spectacular stone coats of arms carved in high reliefs. J.A.S. has chosen one of these private mansions to install his treasure, over four floors, the collection is placed on 177 panels in total with a scarlet background and sometimes blue.J.A.S., initiated at a very young age by his antiquarian maternal grandfather, has joined with determination numerous pieces he has been collecting for over sixty years. My astonishment was immense by contemplating the deployment of 4,500 objects gathered in one place. Such objects, presented in status or removed from their natural setting, give us a synthesized version of the ancient Spanish forging during the Roman, Gothic, Plateresque and Baroque ages, influenced by oriental shapes for 8 centuries.

Subjected to fashion, the bars, window- bumpers, doors, balconies and braces, nails, hinges, latches, chains, locks, coffers, cabinets, doorknobs, doorknockers, bolts... took part in the closing of buildings to protect the individual and his properties.

8000 nails with decorative wrought heads, conical, chiseled, faceted or prominent, cross iron plates of all shapes; some flat, engraved, others curved in teton, poly-lobed, florid, in one or several floors. This multitude of nails remind us of the vital role they played in the structure of the gate; at the junction of cross tables (in the assembly of the wood), sympathized the wood and the more or less worked iron ( hinges, strap hinges and motives); they served as a deterrent shield (see the Cathedral of Girona). Every rolled eye of the impressive handles (braces) that supported the things of a balcony with floral headpieces.

Numerous locks with bumps and sculpted plates, filigreed, cut, pierced, treated so that they keep their keys. Other keys have lost their locks, other locks have lost their keys.

Three hundred balusters of square and rectangular sections, which belonged to gates, front of balconies or pulpits. In the form of little columns composed of capital, stems, bellies and necks, consoles with turned, engraved and drilled trunk.The complex modeling and sometimes executed at various levels is just an excuse for the decoration on top of artichoke, sometimes simple and sometimes double, confronting the diversity of the bars.I think I'm living a dream, all the blacksmithing (photographed over several journeys along Spain) whose acme is located in the sixteenth century. They are the large gates and doors of civilian buildings such as the town-hall of the city of Granada, religious buildings such as those in Ávila, Baeza, Berlanga de Duero, Ampurias Castle, Cordoba, Girona, Jaca, León, Lugo, Palencia and so on. Balconies in Burgos and Leon. Defense of windows (window latches) in Alcala de Henares, Leon, Tremp, in high concentration in Catalonia, hammers, locks, bolts, hinges, which are the evidence of a great control of the matter.

The pieces are preserved on their whole integrity : a large square-sectioned iron bar has a small door, movable equipment with its original iron fittings, interesting coffers, desks (movable secretaires) equipped with a special system to block the door in open position. The  door, knobs, knockers, are legion, mounted on carved sheet (or plate), the non-figurative or figurative handle, zoomorphic (a lion crowned or not, a bovid, a bird with outstretched wings, a snake), anthropomorphic ( a leg, an arm ...), vegetal decoration, geometric, take the form of a ring, loops, pendants, frog legs. They are articulated with grooved bolts which are fantastically worked.

This museum also hosts tools (hammers, scales, animal branding irons, anvils) and objects that surrounded the home (grates, andirons, tongs), important bellows, torch stands (lights, candlesticks, lamps), cutting instruments (knives, scissors, swords), by combining aesthetics and functionality in the spirit of the arts and traditions .

The two located in Catalonia, the Public Museum Cau Ferrat in Sitges and the Episcopal Museum in Vic, present the antique Spanish blacksmithing in quantity. J.A.S.'s collection is much richer than those of Sitges and Vic together.

There is some similarity between the approach of J.A.S. and Chillida´s. The two have established a museum in the framework they have chosen, and based on their experience, they have organized and staged them. The first has collected a myriad of antique Spanish irons of unknown authors, from all the origins, distributed to over eight centuries. The second has arranged his own work, sculptures, studies and designs on its own way.

J.A.S. is heart broken when he thinks about separating from his collection, the work of a lifetime. The blacksmithing is not his only point of interest. If you want more information, you can contact to: Eric Quentin (IFRAM).

Michèle Pellet