Calle José Sánchez Pescador

The street bears the name of José Sánchez Pescador (Madrid, 1802–1863), a chaser born in the city and trained at the Real Fábrica de Platerías Martínez under the silversmith Juan Rico. He worked for the court of Ferdinand VII and made the bronze door of the Congreso de los Diputados, a work that ties his name to the institutional heritage of the capital.

Calle de José Sánchez Pescador recalls the man who chased the great bronze door of the Congreso de los Diputados, the one that stays shut most of the year and turns on its hinges only for solemn ceremonies presided over by the king, such as the opening of each legislative term. Sánchez Pescador was born in Madrid in 1802 and died in the same city in 1863. He learned to draw with Vicente López Portaña, and at fifteen he entered the Real Fábrica de Platerías Martínez, where the silversmith Juan Rico taught him the craft of chasing. There he worked gold and silver for Ferdinand VII and his court, including a sword with a chased hilt for the monarch himself. His greatest work was set into the portico of the palace designed by Narciso Pascual y Colomer: that bronze door which thousands of people pass every day without noticing the hand that shaped it.

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