The Tile Painter – Part 1: Cobalt

Sara had restored azulejo tiles in the same Porto workshop for eleven years, and nobody had ever told her she had the blue wrong.

"It's not cobalt," said the stranger in the doorway. "It's a mix. The old masters used two oxides. You've been using one."

"Excuse me?"

"Beatriz. The new apprentice." She was thirty-five, small and brisk, with cropped hair and a canvas bag of brushes. "I've come from Coimbra. I think your panel is beautiful. But I think the sky is slightly flat."

Sara put down her brush. She was thirty-two, tall, with sleeves rolled to her elbows and a streak of glaze on her cheek. She opened her mouth to be offended, and then she looked at the panel.

It was flat.

"Show me," she said, quietly.

Beatriz showed her. She mixed the two oxides in a saucer, a delicate smoky blue, and with three strokes of a fine brush she gave the sky a depth that Sara had been chasing for years. It looked as if the air had begun to move.

Sara sat down on a stool. "I'm furious," she said, hoarsely.

"I'm sorry."

"No. I'm grateful, and it makes me furious." She laughed, shakily. "Please stay."

For weeks they worked side by side, painting a vast panel for an old cloister, row by row of blue flowers and ships. In the kiln room, the tiles came out glowing. In the evenings the workshop smelled of clay and lemon polish, and the Douro light turned the walls to honey.

"Can I ask you something?" said Beatriz, one night.

"Yes."

"Why did you let me correct you?"

"Because you did it kindly," said Sara.

"Green?" said Beatriz, a word from a friend.

"Green," said Sara. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Glaze.