Still Life with Small Pears, Bread, an Unglazed Jug, Bowl and Bottle

The jug in this picture has no glaze on it, and that was the point. Unglazed clay stays porous, so water seeps slowly through the wall and evaporates from the outside, and that loss of heat cools what is left inside. In a Madrid summer, when ice was a luxury, this was how an ordinary household kept its drinking water cool. Spanish has a single word for the vessel, alcarraza, where English has to say unglazed jug. Meléndez signed and dated the canvas 1760, early in the run of still lifes he was then making. Around the jug he set small pears, a glass bottle, a bowl and soft white rolls, the round molletes that Madrid ate, which bakers there were likely to spice because the city had a taste for strong flavours.