A crisp copy of this lithograph celebrating Jamie Ciblis y Puig’s saladero in Punta de Lobos (Montevideo Bay, Uruguay). A saladero is essentially an abattoir where cattle are killed and processed - the meat is salted to make charqui (jerky) and the hides are tanned for leather. This print was drawn and lithographed by Joseph Adolphe Hequet, of the company A. Hequet y Cohas hermanos.
At the centre of this elaborate image is a general view of the saladero overlooking the Rio de la Plata. Surrounding that are vignettes illustrating all the stages from butchering to the final salting
Jaime Cibils y Puig (1831-1888) was born in Catalonia and educated in Marseille. In 1851, he travelled with his brother to Montevideo. He found work at fellow Catalan, Félix Buxareo’s, import-export business. He learned the business quickly and established his own saladero, which is said to have been the first to be equipped with iron digesters for the extraction of fat. In order to grow the business, he not only bought several ships to ship his products abroad, he financed a dam to facilitate the docking of deep-draught ships. The dock was later bought by the Uruguayan government and is now called the Arsenal de Marina y Dique Nacional. Furthermore, he founded the Banco Comercial and built a theatre (on Ituzaingó St., Montevideo) which was destroyed in a fire in 1912.
Not on OCLC, Libraryhub, or KVK. We locate a single copy at the Zumalakarregi Museum.
Daireaux, Émile, “Les Saladeros de l’Amérique du Sud” in Revue des Deux Mondes, Vol. 13, 1876, pp.331-335.
