The Pickman Cartuja: the first chinaware factory in Spain, 1899-1936

Abstract

The Pickman family, owner of the factory La Cartuja of Seville, was the main producer of chinaware in Spain during most of the 20th century. The present article tries the history of this firm between 1899 and the beginning of the spanish civil war in 1936 and, fundamentally, of the gradual slope of its privileged position in the domestic market. From a nearly monopolistic situation toward 1900, this slope was the result of the incapacity of the owners to adequately confront the challenges originated in a growing rivalry with other manufacturers and in a growing public intervention in industrial policy and labor relations. This incapacity was not the result of the ignorance but the result of decisions protected in a “gentleman” culture of business in which speculation and rent seeking had greater interest than the productive investments.