One of the most central structures in the city of Valencia is the Palacio del Marques de dos Aguas, a former palace and now the home of Spain’s National Museum of Ceramics and Arts. The fifteenth century home was officially declared a historic-artistic monument in 1941. Historians consider the palace a “paragon of nobility and wealth,” stemming from the fifteenth century during which the Perellos Rabassa family acquired the Barony of Dos Aguas and were ultimately elevated to the status of Marquis by King Charles II.The grounds originally consisted of three Gothic buildings arranged around the perimeter of a courtyard, as well as a single tower at the northwest corner. The current palace is the product of a radical reform which occurred in the year 1740 and now boasts an irregular quadrangular layout organized around the courtyard and corner towers. The front door was carved in alabaster by Valencia’s Ignacio Vergara, the founder of the Santa Barbara School of Fine Arts. The palace’s name “Dos Aguas” refers to the two largest rivers in the region of Valencia, the Turia and Jucar, which are represented on the building’s façade by two nude human figures and two falling streams of water.
The ownership of the palace changed hands multiple times throughout the centuries, until the Spanish government officially purchased the site in 1949 for the installation of a ceramic collection assembled by Professor Don Manuel Gonzalez Marti, his wife Amelia Cunat, and Monleon, ultimately becoming the National Ceramics Museum.
The then-Minister of Education, Don Joaquin Ruiz Jimenez, presided over the official inauguration of the Museum on June 18, 1954.
The National Museum of Ceramics and Arts receives world-renowned praise, not only for their vast exhibition of artistic works, but also for the intriguing history and beauty of the palace itself.
Photo courtesy of Flickr.
