[ti:Spanish Tapestry Factory Creating Pieces after 300 Years]
[by:www.21voa.com]
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[00:01.88]Spain's Royal Tapestry Factory
[00:04.36]has been providing clothes,
[00:06.28]called carpets for the floor
[00:08.16]and tapestries for the wall,
[00:10.44]for palaces and public buildings
[00:13.56]for more than 300 years.
[00:16.80]Found on a quiet street in Spain's capital Madrid,
[00:20.76]its artisans combine long-held knowledge of the work
[00:25.40]with new methods to create cloth-based products.
[00:30.80]The factory was opened in 1721
[00:34.16]by Spain's King Felipe V.
[00:37.72]He brought in Catholic artisans from Flanders,
[00:40.80]an area found in today's Belgium, to get it started.
[00:45.72]At the time, the area had been under Spanish control.
[00:50.40]Cloth like wool can be found in all colors in the factory.
[00:55.32]And tools like bobbins and spinning wheels
[00:58.68]are everywhere in the factory.
[01:01.88]Some of the original wooden machines are still in use.
[01:05.80]Alejandro Klecker de Elizalde is the factory's general director.
[01:12.12]"Here the only products we work with are silk,
[01:15.52]wool, jute, cotton, linen," he said.
[01:20.64]"And these small leftovers that we create,
[01:23.68]the water from the dyes, or the small pieces of wool,
[01:28.00]everything is recycled,
[01:30.24]everything has a double, a second use."
[01:34.52]The factory also brings old pieces
[01:37.32]that have been damaged through time
[01:39.28]back to good condition.
[01:41.20]And it keeps some of the most important cloth
[01:44.32]and material records in Europe.
[01:47.72]Now, 70 percent of its buyers are individuals
[01:50.84]from Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.
[01:55.64]The factory recently received one of its biggest orders,
[01:59.36]32 tapestries for the Palace of Dresden in Germany.
[02:04.32]The order is worth more than 1 million dollars
[02:07.24]and it will provide work for up to five years,
[02:10.24]Klecker de Elizalde said.
[02:13.48]In 2018, the factory finished a tapestry
[02:17.32]for a Lebanese buyer based on the work Sabra
[02:20.96]and Shatila Massacre by Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi.
[02:27.08]The cloth shows the 1982-83
[02:30.52]violence by Christian Phalangist militia
[02:33.68]in Palestinian refugee camps
[02:36.08]that were guarded by Israeli troops.
[02:39.72]Creating a tapestry is a difficult process
[02:43.16]that takes several weeks or months of work
[02:45.44]for each square meter.
[02:48.16]A tapestry begins with "cartoons,"
[02:51.16]or drawings on paper that are later copied
[02:55.16]onto a system of material called warps
[02:58.60]which are then woven over.
[03:02.00]One of the factory's well-known cartoonists
[03:04.56]was master painter Francisco Goya,
[03:07.48]who began working there in 1780.
[03:11.72]Some of the tapestries he designed
[03:14.04]are now found in the nearby Prado Museum
[03:17.40]and Madrid's Royal Collections Gallery.
[03:21.48]I'm Jill Robbins. 更多听力请访问21VOA.COM