ACTIVITY
This workshop performs all of the tasks involved in producing a procession float, an image carrier, an altarpiece or a gilded artefact, or in restoration. Its team conceives of projects as a whole while also placing importance on each phase and taking meticulous care over… every detail, in a quest for beauty and harmony.
Design is the basis of all their work, necessarily involving drawing and a knowledge of the various styles concerned. They draw up plan views and profiles and outline all items in actual size. The second stage is joinery, transferring drawings to wood. After this comes ornamentation, for which the relevant drawing is cut up, fitted with backing and placed at different levels as required for interpretation. The parts are then carved with various volumes and styles according to the design, and the carved piece is hollowed at the back to give it lightness. The tools used for this are gouges, with tips of various shapes and sizes to suit any design.
Once the carving process is complete, the piece may be gilded, involving a long and meticulous process using 23¾ carat gold. The workshop does water gilding with burnished gold, which entails first priming the wood with a layer of rabbit-skin glue and then brushing on at least seven layers of gesso, also made with natural glues. All the gesso surfaces are then thoroughly sanded and a natural clay called bole is applied. This, once polished with a perrillo brush, allows the gold to be given a lustre. The gold leaf is stuck on in small strips with a gilder’s tip, with the surface being kept moist so that the glues remain tacky and the gold adheres. Finally the gilt surface is burnished with agate stones.
If polychrome is required, it is applied with natural egg-based pigments or oils as appropriate.
With much research and work the firm has developed optimal methods for the gilding of artefacts, combining the finest finishes and polychrome paints and using the best materials.
The workshop normally uses Scots pine for structures and cedar for decorative carvings, although they can also use other woods.
TRAINING
José María Higuera’s learning process began with three years at the Trade School of La Merced, which was responsible for rebuilding the altarpiece of the church of the Palace of La Merced (headquarters of the Córdoba Provincial Council), in which José María earned the best… grades in his year in subjects such as carving, drawing and art history, while working with various Cordoban artists notably including Miguel Arjona Navarro.
With this foundation he has also studied and researched his field by himself, and above all he has acquired experience over more than twenty years in his own workshop.
SELECTED WORK
He has received many commissions from processional brotherhoods in every province and major city of Andalusia, such as the Confraternities of Our Lady of Sorrows or of Love in Córdoba, of Christ Stripped of his Garments in Jaén, of Christ of Forgiveness in Motril (Granada… province), of the Coronation in Almería, of Christ on the Donkey in Linares (Jaén province), or of Salvation in Palma del Río (Córdoba province), along with work in Pedrera and Marchena in Seville province or for the well-known Sevillian designers Victorio & Lucchino.
