Porcelain

The porcelain and ceramic collection includes around 22,200 objects that belonged to the different monarchs of the Houses of Austria and Bourbon

There is a wide variety of decorative and practical items that allow us to appreciate how they changed over time, thanks to the technological advances and changing tastes in European manufacturing from the early 18th century. It also contains an important number of objects of oriental manufacture, amongst which are vases and figures that correspond to periods of production in the Ming and Qing dynasties, along with other Imari pieces of the Edo period that belonged to queen Elisabeth Farnese.

The sets linked to the table services are the best-known. They are now very incomplete due to the fragility of the material and the transfer of the pieces kept in the old Chinese room of the Palace to the National Archaeological Museum in 1870. The main European manufacturers are represented here, with outstanding sets from the factory in Meissen in Saxony and those made when the Royal Porcelain Factory in Sèvres was at its peak, and the K.P.M. factory in Berlin, ranging from Rococo to Neoclassical styles.

Special mention should be made of the decorative pieces and those that form part of permanent room arrangements such as those in the Aranjuez Palace and the Royal Palace in Madrid, together with other ornamental pieces as in the Plate Room in the Casita del Príncipe del Escorial, or the Old Dressing Room of Queen Maria Luisa of Parma, made in the Buen Retiro factory between 1765 and 1803.

The Parisian manufactures of the first quarter of the 19th century are represented by Schoelcher's coffee set, and by the gala services of the manufacturers Royal Paris, Ed. Honore and Laroche Pannier, subsidiaries of Sèvres. The great service commissioned from the Sèvres factory in 1905 for Alfonso XIII is notable, with its elements of conventional form and eclectic decoration with a crowned coat of arms, and white biscuit figures that constitute the centrepiece, or "surtout de table".

English manufacturers such as Chelsea, Copeland and Coalport can be found in the collection of figurines and dinnerware, such as the one that belonged to Queen Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg.

The Spanish factories that supplied the Royal Household, such as Pickman, Valdemorillo, Pola & Cia and Pasajes de San Juan, produced utilitarian soft-paste pieces in the 19th century with decoration based on initials or symbols related to the Monarchy.

Pottery is represented in the Royal Collections with items for daily use and tiles from important national production centers such as Talavera and Alcora, made between the 16th and 20th centuries.