-ROM THE LIBRARY OF C^^roik lers, iC. TH AVE. NEW YORK 49Y «c;r "a. "m. STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/frenchpotteryOOgasn SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS. FRENCH POTTERY. This Work on French Pottery^ forming one of the Series of Art Handbooks issued under the authority of the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education^ has been prepared by M. Paul Gasnault and M. Edouard Garnier, of the Musde des Arts Decoratifs at Paris, and translated from the Fre7ich by M. P. Villars. June , 1884. FRENCH POTTERY BY PAUL GASNAULT and EDOUARD GARNIER. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MARKS. Published for the Com7tiittee of Council on Education BY CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED. 1884. CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE GALLIC, GALLO-ROMAN, AND MEROVINGIAN POTTERY — GLAZED POTTERY ANTERIOR TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY ... I CHAPTER II. FRENCH FAIENCE 8 CHAPTER III. OIRON WARE, ALSO TERMED HENRI-DEUX WARE . . . .12 CHAPTER IV. BERNARD PALISSY AND HIS FOLLOWERS .22 CHAPTER V. STANNIFEROUS -ENAMELLED FAIENCE — NEVERS AND SCHOOL OF NEVERS 32 CHAPTER VI. ROUEN AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 4^ CHAPTER VII. MOUSTIERS, STRASBURG, NIEDERWILLER, LUN^VILLE, MARSEILLES, ETC 71 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE SOFT PORCELAIN — ROUEN, ST. -CLOUD, CLIANTILLY, ETC. . . • IO3 CHAPTER IX. SOFT PORCELAIN— VINCENNES, SfeVRES I16 CHAPTER X. NAMES AND MARKS OF PRINCIPAL PAINTERS OF SfeVRES OF THE FIRST PERIOD 134 CHAPTER XI. LIARD PORCELAIN — MANUFACTORY OF SEVRES I43 CHAPTER XII. HARD PORCELAIN — SECONDARY MANUFACTORIES . • • -154 CHAPTER XIII. FRENCH CERAMICS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY .... 167 FIG. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 13 H 15 i6 17 i8 19 20 21 22 23 4 14 15 17 i 8 19 20 28 29 34 35 36 37 39 40 42 43 48 50 51 52 53 54 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Gallic Vase, Black Ware, Mus. St. Germain . Tazza, Henri-Deux Ware, or Faience d’Oiron, S. K. Mus. Plateau, ,, ,, ,, Candlestick, ,, ,, ■ Salt-Cellar, ,, ,, ,, Tazza and Cover ,, ,, ,, Female Head from Interior of Tazza .... Rustic Dish, Palissy Ware, S. K. Mus. .... Ewer, ,, „ .... Pilgrim’s Bottle, Nevers Ware, S. K. Mus. . Plateau, ,, ,, ... Vase, ,, ... Plate, ,, ,, ... Pilgrim’s Bottle, ,, ,, ... Vase, with Cover, ,, ... Aiguiere, . , . , ... Plateau or Basin, ,, ,, ... Plateau, Rouen Ware, S. K. Mus. .... Dish, „ „ .... Tray, ,, „ .... Plate, ,, ,, .... Plateau, ,, ,, ... Plate, ,, ,, .... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. viii FIG. 24 Example of Border Decoration, Rouen Ware . 25 Dish, Rouen Ware, S. K. Mus 26 Aiguiere, Rouen Ware, S. K. Mus. 27 Bust and Pedestal, ,, 28 Ewer, ,, 29 Sugar-sifters, ,, ,, 30 Jardiniere or Flower-Pot, Rouen Ware, S. K. Mus. 31 Plate, Lille Ware, S. K. Mus. .... 32 Plateau, Moustiers Ware, S. K. Mus. 33 Tray, „ ,, . . . 34 Plate, „ „ . . . 35 Barber's Basin, ,, ,, , . . 36 Plate, Strasburg Ware ...... 37 Clock Case, Strasburg Ware, S. K. Mus. 38 Fountain, ,, ,, . 39 Tray, Niederwiller Ware, S. K. Mus. 40 Ice Pail, St. Amand Ware . . . 41 Jug, Apt Ware, S. K. Mus. ..... 42 Cover, Rouen Porcelain, Gasnault Collection 43 Teapot, St. -Cloud Porcelain, S. K. Mus. 44 Compotier, Chantilly Porcelain, Gasnault Collection 45 Vase, Sevres Porcelain, Jones Collection, S. K. Mus 46 Vase, „ ,, „ 47 Cream Jug, De la Courtille Porcelain, S. K. Mus. . 48 Cup, “ Porcelaine a la Reine,” Gasnault Collection 49 Cup, Orleans Porcelain, Gasnault Collection . 56 57 58 59 61 62 63 70 73 74 76 77 82 83 84 86 98 100 106 109 111 129 131 156 157 165 SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS, FRENCH POTTERY. Division I.— EARTHENWARE. FRENCH POTTERY. CHAPTER I. GALLIC, GALLO-ROMAN, AND MEROVINGIAN POTTERY. GLAZED POTTERY ANTERIOR TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. It is rather difficult to determine, even approximately, the dis- tinctive characteristics of the pottery manufactured by the ancient inhabitants of the old Gallic soil. In all early ceramic produc- tions, to whatever country they may belong, the characteristics are nearly all the same, and it would be unwise to take them as a basis for an historical or chronological classification. It is, indeed, evident that until the potter’s wheel was invented the manufacturing processes were very simple, and that these rude processes would be subject to very slight modifications, due only to the more or less developed skill and taste of the artisan, or to the nature of the clay at his disposal. It is not, therefore, our intention to deal with such wares which resemble those of all peoples at the early dawn of civilisation. Long before the Roman invasion, however, the potter’s art in Gaul seems to have arrived at a certain degree of comparative perfection ; and many vessels found in tombs of unascertained date, but which contained bronze weapons and utensils, denote, by the delicacy and purity of their shapes, as also by the fineness of the paste, a flourishing industry which would have had but little to learn from intercourse with the invaders. B 2 FRENCH POTTERY. Many of these wares present interesting features which it is important to note ; those, for instance, which have been lustred by friction after baking in order to heighten the dim colour of the clay; or those which have been glazed externally by means of a kind of graphite sufficiently hard to resist the destructive action of water. A great number of these, whole or in fragments, have been found in the lacustral cities of the lakes of Bourget and of Annecy, the recent explorations of which have supplied much valuable information illustrating the customs and the industry of the Gauls before the Roman dominion. Among the potteries found in the lake of Bourget, we must also mention some small vessels decorated on their external surface with extremely thin plates of hammered tin, forming geometrical designs and ornamental combinations indicating very dexterous handling and true artistic feeling. These plates appear to have been fixed on the clay by means of liquefied pitch ; and this opinion seems to be corroborated by the discovery, also in the lake of Bourget, of several small lumps of the same pitch that was employed for stopping holes and fissures in vases, and for repairing earthenware. The Museum of Chambery possesses a certain number of articles thus repaired. But a still greater proof of the skill of the Gaulish potters is found in the large vases measuring no less than 95 centimetres or even a metre in diameter (37 or 39 inches) at their aperture, and which very likely were used for holding wine, oil, and corn. Although their decoration is sometimes rather rude and always very unambitious, these immense pieces so difficult of execution are well calculated to show to what degree of perfection the potter’s art had been raised before the conquest. Under the Roman dominion Gallic pottery retains, in certain regions, a very distinct character. We have not to deal here with the red pottery generally known under the name of Sa 7 nian ware — although it was originally manufactured only at Arretium (modern Arezzo) and never at Samos — which is found wherever GALLIC, GALLO-ROMAN, AND MEROVINGIAN 3 the victorious Romans bent their steps. If occasionally some of these wares are found which are stamped with Gallic names, it simply would show that the manufacturing processes of the Roman potters were acquired either by cession or in consequence of matrimonial unions between the families of the new-comers and those of the native potters ; but without in any way detracting from the exclusively Italian character of these kinds of pottery. Such is not the case with the black or gray wares lustred by friction or even sometimes covered with a thin, smooth, and brilliant glaze. Although in some cases they show the influence exercised by an already mature and vigorous civilisa- tion on a people whose customs were rough and still somewhat barbarous, and often enough bear inscriptions written in the language of the conquerors, they nevertheless retain a very distinct character which entitles them to a special chapter in the history of pottery. Such are the jugs and drinking-cups or goblets with flattened sides, so as to be more easily held in the hand, and bearing bacchanalian inscriptions, or wishes traced in Roman letters with white “engobe” or slip: BENE BIBO, BIBE, REPLE, VIVAS FELIX VIVAMUS, etc. The advent of Christianity, whose influence on Gallic archi- tecture was so strongly felt, and created, so to say, a national art, had none whatever on pottery. The lamps were decorated with the emblems most popular with, and common amongst, early Christians, and a few vessels used in places of worship were covered with inscriptions engraved with a pointed tool ; but the shapes remained the same, and the manufacturing process was not modified. At a later period, during the Merovingian epoch, and until the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the ceramic art appears to have gone back several hundred years, and even fallen below the level to which it had been raised before the Roman occupation ; the earthenware utensils exclusively destined for the purposes of domestic life of the simplest and least refined order were B 2 4 FRENCH POTTERY. coarse, heavy, and of gloomy aspect. As in early ages, spiral shapes predominated, and the ornaments, impressed by means FIG. I. GALLIC VASE, BLACK WARE, INSCRIBED IN WHITE “ REPLE.” MUSEUM, ST. GERMAIN. of coarsely-cut wooden dies, bore no relation whatever to the delicate tracery and fine mouldings of the ceramic productions of earlier times. We will not dwell on these various wares which all belong to the class of unglazed pottery {poteries 7?iates), as a deeper study of them would fall within the province of archaeology, and be out of place in this work. Besides, they have no great interest, at least so far as French ceramic industry is concerned, and although they have been manufactured ever since, they present no dis- tinctive character, especially since the introduction of lead glaze into Europe ; by which the clay is coated with a resisting, transparent, and colourless enamel, but easy to colour with GALLIC, GALLO-L^OMAN, AND MEROVINGIAN 5 metallic oxides, thus adding a new element to the old decora- tive processes, and, at the same time, remedying the porosity of the clay — a defect of great magnitude when the purposes of domestic economy are considered. We will not revive the controversy on the discovery of lead glaze and its application to European ceramics. It must evi- dently have been known to the nations of antiquity, since there are in museums and private collections earthenware objects coated with a green or brown glaze on the nature of which no doubt can possibly subsist; but those objects found, for the greater part, in the old Cyrenian provinces or in the islands of Asia Minor, are so few in number that it is difficult to admit that they were extensively manufactured. In any case, the introduc- tion into France of this new method of fabrication may be referred to the twelfth century ; and there are, in the museum of Sevres, two small broken vases covered with a yellowish lead glaze, which were found by Baron Taylor in a grave bearing date 1120, which he ordered to be opened in his presence in the old and celebrated Abbey of Jumieges. The use of this glaze soon became general, and jugs, bowls, vases, and more particularly tiles and vitrified bricks^ were thus manufactured. Unfortunately we have no very precise information as to the places where they were made. As early as the thirteenth century, however, Beauvais was noted for its glazed pottery, mentioned in several inventories and in the accounts of the royal household, and the renown of which had so spread as to be proverbial : on fait des godetsf d Beauvais (Leroux de Lincy, “Proverbes fran^ais,” vol. i. p. 317). Although in the present state of ceramic science it is almost impossible to establish with accuracy any chronological classifica- * The conical roof of the great tower of the Louvre, or Philippe- Auguste’s Tower, was covered with enamelled tiles of various colours. + The name of godet was given to a goblet with a wide aperture, sometimes fashioned in the shape of a cup and often with a cover. — L. DE Labordf, “Glossaire.” 6 FRENCH POTTERY. tion of the wares coming from the various manufacturing districts, and to determine clearly their distinctive characters, they never- theless are an interesting subject for study on account of their shapes and decoration. Lead glaze being vitreous and translucent, can only be coloured by metallic oxides of a tint darker than that of the clay it is intended to cover, notwithstanding the generally dark tone of the clay itself. The resources of this new mode of manufacture were necessarily scanty as far as the colours went, and were gene- rally limited to copper green and manganese brown ; the conse- quence was that the potters, especially in the earlier times, must have endeavoured to make up for this deficiency chiefly by the use of ornaments in relief for decorating pottery ; in fact, their wares are nearly always ornamented with a variety of figures, grotesque masks, flowers, escutcheons, etc., moulded separately and more or less skilfully stuck on the clay with barbotine before the enamel was applied. Later, graved and coloured “ engobes ” or slips were used — a process most likely borrowed from the Italians. This process, which consists in applying on the object to be decorated a thin layer of slip or “ engobe,” coloured with metallic oxides, and lighter or darker than the clay on which it is applied, gave, when skilfully employed, new effects which clever artists turned to the best account. There only remained, when the piece was quite dry, to cut out in places, and following a design prepared beforehand, the superficial layer or slip (“ engobe ”) until the ground was reached. By this means, ornaments, inscriptions, and even figures were obtained, which by the strong contrast of the colours of the upper and lower surfaces came out with great clearness. * “Barbotine” is the dough diluted with water, so as to form a liquid paste, with which handles or ornaments in relief are stuck on the wet clay. Of late years the name of “barbotine” has been extended to earthenware decorated with coloured clay ; we shall deal with this kind of decoration farther on. GALLIC, GALLO-ROMAN, AND MEROVINGIAN 7 These two methods were simultaneously employed in the decoration of glazed pottery, and were applied with great fertility of invention to objects of various shapes and uses until the sixteenth century. But at that time the use of tin enamel of a beautiful milky-white hue, capable of being painted with rich and varied colours, and sufficiently opaque to conceal the dark tint of the clay, was becoming general in Italy. Towards the middle of the fifteenth century, Lucca della Robbia had already used it in order to give to his admirable works in terra-cotta an impervious coating which ensured to them indefinite durability, and under the fertile im- pulsion of the great artistic current which distinguishes the glorious epoch known under the name of Renaissance, manufactories of maiolica were springing up everywhere in the marches of Italy, in the duchy of Urbino, in Tuscany, etc. The new process gave to artists resources which the old method of decoration did not afford ; and was likely to produce, and did produce, a kind of revolution in the ceramic arts which effected wonders. Glazed pottery was still manufactured ; but soon potters ceased to ornament this kind of ware, whose study from that moment loses all its interest from an industrial and artistic standpoint. CHAPTER II. FRENCH FAIENCE. The greatest uncertainty prevails even now as to the time when the practice was introduced into France of covering pottery with the opaque white tin enamel known to the Italians since the middle of the fifteenth century, and to which the production of so many remarkable works was due. It is, however, known that as early as 1542 there was at Rouen a manufactory of enamelled tiles in whose productions Italian influence is so conspicuous that no doubt remains as to its origin. From this manufactory originally came the fragments of tiles now in the Museum and numbered, 8490, 8491, 8492-63, and 8533-63. These beautiful tiles, evidently made by the processes peculiar to the Italian ceramic artists, but essentially French by the style and composition of the ornaments, were formerly in the Chateau d’Ecouen, built by the Constable de Montmorency. The finest and most important of these four fragments (No. 8533-63) leaves no doubt as to their origin, for it bears the monogram and sword of the illustrious Constable, and his proud motto: ‘‘ARMA TENENTI OMNIA DAT QUI JUSTA NEGAT.” If we compare these tiles with those which now ornament the landing of the grand staircase of the Chateau of Chantilly belong- ing to the Due d’Aumale, one of which bears the inscription A Roiien^ 1542, no doubt remains as to the time and place in which they were made. Although the Chantilly tiles represent FRENCH FAIENCE. 9 historical subjects (the legend of “ Mucius Scaevola,” and that of “Marcus Curtius”), the processes of fabrication are the same, and they, likewise, were originally in the Chateau d’Ecouen. Besides, it has been proved by the researches originally made by Andre Pettier, the learned archaeologist of Rouen, and after- wards by M. Gosselin, who has given an account of them in 1869, in his “ Glanes historiques normandes,” that there lived at Rouen a potter named Masseot Abaquesne^"^^ who is described in several legal documents as an esmailleur de tei're ; and there is, amongst several other deeds, a receipt for one hundred gold crowns, “ pour solde de compte et parfait payement d’une four- niture d’un certain no?nbre de carreaux de terre esmaillee qu’il a faicte a haidt et puissajit seigneur Messire le Connestable Grand Maistre de Frajicei'' Unfortunately nothing more is known of this Abaquesne, except that his venture does not appear to have been very prosperous, and that, “ born in poverty, he died in poverty.’’ Afcer him, no traces are left of this interesting industry, and nearly a century elapsed before it was revived in the old Norman city. It is, however, evident that the potter of Rouen must have learnt his trade either in Italy or from one of the numerous Italians who came to France with the artists summoned by King Francis I. For among the latter were several ouvriers de terre.^ one of them being Girolamo della Robbia (son of Andrea, and grand-nephew of the great Lucca della Robbia), who was specially entrusted with the decoration of a considerable portion of the Petit Chateau de Madrid., erected by order of the king in the Bois de Boulogne. The outer decoration of this chateau, ironically nicknamed by Philibert Delorme, ChateaiLde Famice, and byAndrouet Ducerceau, an immense vaisselier, was exclusively composed of terra-cotta, * Masseot or Massiot was a diminutive of Thomas, very commonly used in the sixteenth century. lO FRENCH POTTERY. enamelled earthenware, and enamels.* Girolamo, therefore, must have brought with him a few artisans whose duty it was to prepare the clay and colours, and to bake the pieces which he modelled and decorated, or else he must have selected a number of French potters, some of whom, like Abaquesne, were intelligent enough to carry to other parts of the country the trade they had learnt from the Italian master. The Chateau de Madrid was unfortunately destroyed entirely in 1792, and, with the exception of the enamels in the Musee de Cluny, nothing now remains of that royal whim, as the terra-cotta and Italian faience ornaments were sold to a paviour, crushed and turned into cement, and we have nothing that can serve as a term of comparison to support the opinion we have expressed above. There was also at Lyons, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, a faience factory set up by an Italian named Francesco a native of Pesaro, and ultimately managed, under his direction, by Julien Gambin and Domenico Tardessir, both natives of Faenza ; but it was a short-lived affair, and, moreover, the works ascribed to it hardly deserve more than a passing mention. They are, for the greater part, faience objects decorated with figures — histoires, as they were then termed — and similar to the maiolicas of Urbino and Faenza at the time of their decline. The drawing is heavy, nearly always encircled by a black line sharply defined, and the colouring is dry and hard. Some of the pieces bear explanatory inscriptions written at the back in bad French. According to Piccolpasso, whose interesting manuscript belongs to the Museum Library, it would appear that a factory was also established at Nantes, at the same period, by an Italian ; but in spite of these reiterated attempts, the art of faience-making * The Musee de Cluny possesses nine plaques of Limoges enamel formerly in the Chateau de Madrid ; these plaques, which measure no less than i metre 65 centimetres (74! inches) in height, and i metre (39^ inches) in width, are the largest enamels known. FRENCH FAIENCE. 1 1 was not established in France, at least in a regular manner, daring the whole of the sixteenth century ] it lacked that which had made the success and prosperity of the Italian manufactories — the support and patronage of princes and grands seigneurs. Another cause, which appears to us also to have thwarted the development of this art, is the considerable importance acquired by the manufacture of the Limoges enamels. This was a truly French art, as noble and quite as ornamental as that practised at Urbino and Faenza, and support and patronage were more likely to be extended to this fine industry which had nothing to learn from foreigners. The French ceramic art of the sixteenth century may never- theless justly boast of two distinct kinds of pottery which, with- out borrowing from foreign art, contrived to bring forth, the one exquisite, delicate, and jewel-like objects, the other powerful and bold works, which have secured for their author immortal fame ; namely, the Oiron ware and the Palissy wa?'e. CHAPTER III. GIRON WARE, ALSO TERMED HENRI-DEUX WARE. There are, in various museums and private collections, fifty- three pieces of faience of the sixteenth century, of very peculiar manufacture and decoration, unlike anything produced in any country before that period, having nothing in common with any known faience, and which, after exercising for a long time the patience and sagacity of amateurs of art and scholars, had been termed Henri- Deux ware; so many of them bearing the arms and monogram of that king that, for want of a more precise designation (their origin being unknown), this denomination appeared to be the most appropriate. Thanks, however, to the researches of a learned archaeologist whose recent loss France is now mourning, M. Benjamin Fillon, this question has been elucidated, and no uncertainty now remains as to the history of the manufacture of this wonderful ware, five of the most remarkable specimens of which are in the Museum. This manufacture was originated in 1524 at the Chateau of Oiron, near Thouars, by Helene de Hangest, Dame de Boissy, widow of Arthur Gouffier, formerly governor to Francis I. and Grand Master of France. Helene de Hangest was a distinguished and enlightened woman, of refined and delicate taste, who found in artistic pursuits a relief to the sorrows of widowhood. Several portraits drawn by her in pencil heightened with red chalk have been preserved, and show real talent. It was under OIRON WARE, 13 her directions that those two intelligent and skilful men, Jehan Bernart, her librarian, and Fran9ois Charpentier, executed the magnificent faience objects which she used to give to persons of her acquaintance, or to her relations and friends, whose mono- grams and arms are on several of the pieces. The names of her ‘‘ collaborateurs ” have been recorded in a deed, dated 1529, by which she granted to them the fee-simple of the house and orchard where the oven and workshops, “ le four et les appentys de leur fabrication^ were situated. It was evidently Bernart, the “keeper of her library,” who was the chief decorator of the wares of Oiron, for in most of them, especially in the earlier productions, we find designs and ornaments similar to those of the valuable books of the sixteenth century, inlaid, so to speak, in the soft clay with bookbinder’s tools. This is proved by examination of some of the pieces in which the ornaments do not correspond exactly, notwithstanding the care with which they were stamped. After the death of Helene de Hangest in 1537, the manu- facture was carried on under the patronage of her son, Claude Gouffier, who always felt interested in the productions of the factory founded by his mother, but was not, like that lady, able to direct and superintend their execution. Being strongly attached to the Dauphin (Henri II.), he caused to be made for him a number of faience objects decorated with the arms of France and the prince’s monogram ; and as these pieces are comparatively numerous, the name of Henri-Deux ware was given to the ware of Oiron. Soon afterwards the factory was neglected, and fell into the hands of inexperienced men, who made use of the moulds, stamps, and dies left by Bernart and Charpentier ; but who had neither tlieir talent for harmonious composition, nor their refined taste and care and skill. The manufacture quickly decayed and disappeared altogether, leaving nothing to recall its existence. The wares of Oiron may be divided under three distinct and 14 FRENCH POTTERY. clearly-defined classes, corresponding to the three periods we have briefly mentioned. The pieces manufactured under the direction of Helene de Hangest are simple in shape, soberly, and sometimes severely, decorated, as if the influence of the sorrowful mind of the widow of Arthur Gouffier told in their manufacture. The ornaments are generally of a dark brown tint, occasionally heightened by a few touches of a rich carnation pink, or of a lighter brown. The execution of these wares is perfect, and although they may appear less effective than those of the following period, they are, in our estimation, much superior to them, both from an artistic and an industrial standpoint. The Museum possesses one of the most remarkable specimens of the first period — a circular cup raised on a stem of fine FIG. 2 . TAZZA, HENRI-DEUX WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 14 — 1864. OIRON V/ARE. 15 proportions, if, perhaps, a little heavy (Fig. 2); the decoration, composed of foliated scrolls forming a circular frieze in harmony with the sober shape of the cup, is executed with infinite art and care. This kind of ornament, consisting of repeated floriated scrolls forming a circular frieze, is also to be found in the beautiful plateau or salver (Fig. 3), bearing in the centre the FIG. 3. PLATEAU, HENRI-DEUX WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 4405—1857. i6 FRENCH POTTERY. escutcheon of Guillaume Gouffier, son of Admiral Bonnivet, a knight of Malta, who became Bishop of Beziers. There is no other piece of Oiron ware of this shape known at the present time. Besides its rarity, this salver is most valuable as indicating a period of transition, for we see in its decoration signs of the ornamentation in relief, chiefly characteristic of the second class. In the productions of the second period, the improved technical skill of the able potters of Oiron, after a few years’ practice, is noticeable. The ornaments are more elaborate, and the colours more varied — yellow-ochre, green, and blue, occasion- ally picked out with gold, are introduced; the carefully-drawn interlacings are encircled with black or dark brown lines ; the pieces are more beautifully shaped and overloaded with ornaments in relief, such as masks, brackets, figures, pilasters, etc. In some of the objects exaggeration of treatment is too conspicuous, and the potters, now thoroughly masters of all the secrets and resources of their art, and anxious to display their skill and dexterity, were inclined to over- decorate their productions, which gave them a rather heavy aspect. There are in the Museum three pieces of the second period, the finest and most important being undoubtedly the magnificent candlestick. No. 261-64. We will not attempt to describe this wonderful faience (Fig. 4), a tour de force^ and a marvel of dexterity, which was doubtless intended for King Henri II., as proved by the arms of France, and the king’s monogram engraved on the escutcheons supported by three figures of boys modelled in relief. The three thermae under the socket are an allusion to the motto of the house of Gouffier : Hie terminus hcBret:^ ^ * “ Et si fata Jovis poscunt, hie terminus hseret.” — can. iv. OIRON WARE. >7 i8 FRENCH POTTERY. Another equally remarkable piece (Fig. 5) is the charming hexagonal salt-cellar of architectural design, having on each of its sides a sort of niche containing a small figure. These salt-cellars appear to have been favourite objects with th-e artists of Oiron (there are fifteen of them known to be extant), and for FIG. 5. SALT-CELLAR, HENRI-DEUX WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 1189 — 1864. richness and elegance they are equal to the most delicately chiselled goldsmiths’ work in which the most graceful decora- tions of the French renaissance are reproduced with so much variety. The third piece, slightly deformed in the oven, is a covered cup of elliptical shape (Fig. 6) whose decoration chiefly consists OIRON WARE. 19 of interlacings encircled with dark brown lines. The interior Of the cup bears the arms of France, and inside the cover is a characteristic head of a female (Fig. 7) drawn in outline, and FIG. 6. TAZZA AND COVER, HENRI-DEUX WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 8715 — 1863. partly shaded in light brown ; a salt-cellar in the collection of M. Spitzer, of Paris, is ornamented with a similar head, but with- out the brown shades; and we believe these pieces to be the only two which present this remarkable peculiarity. With regard to the faience of the third period, it is both in manufacture and c 2 20 FRENCH POTTERY, delicacy of decoration much inferior to that of the preceding periods; the shapes are heavy, sometimes extravagant, and the decoration consists of stamped ornaments, disposed at random, with an utter disregard of the fitness of the design, which is nearly always irregular and inharmonious, whilst the relievos are coarse. FIG. 7. FROM INTERIOR OF TAZZA. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 14 — 1864. unfinished, carelessly applied, and sometimes even not in their proper place. There is no object belonging to this period of decay in the Museum. From a purely ceramic standpoint, the Oiron ware belongs to the class of fine earthenware with a translucent glaze ; the clay is white, and in the oven assumes a soft and harmonious ivory tone. Notwithstanding its extraordinary perfection, it marked no pro- 01 RON WARE. 21 gress as far as the texture was concerned, the glaze used being similar to that generally employed by the potters of that time, and so modified in its composition as to blend with the clay according to the practice prevailing in all manufactories. It was the result of a particular and special industry which was destined to disappear with its originator, without exercising any influence on the progress of French ceramic art ; it was an artistic and ingenious applica- tion of an existing process, but it was not a discovery. CHAPTER IV. BERNARD PALISSY AND HIS FOLLOWERS. Of all the artists who devoted themselves to the art de la terre, Bernard Palissy is certainly the most universally known and the most popular ; his life has been made the subject of legends, plays, and novels, and his name, symbolising the French ceramic art, is surrounded by a glorious halo. We will not give here a history of his life — he has himself described his trials, his hopes, his deceptions, and his successes in his singularly energetic and graphic writings ; with the scholar, geologist, scientist, and agriculturist (for he was all these), we are not concerned; and we shall confine ourselves to speak of the potter and to relate his connection with the art he was destined to raise to so high a level, and to which he owes his imperishable fame. Very little is known of Palissy’s early life ; the date and place of his birth even are not ascertained. According to some of his biographers he was born about the year 1510, at La Chapelle- Biron, near Agen ; according to others in Saintonge. Like all young artists and artisans of his time, he made several voyages to the Pyrenees and the southern and eastern provinces of France, to Flanders, etc. While working at several trades — such as land- surveying and measuring, and specially glass-making, as well as portrait-painting — he made a number of geological observations and acquired a vast knowledge of the natural sciences, the results of which are recorded in his writings, and must have been of the BERNARD FALISSY AND BIS FOLLOWERS. 23 greatest assistance to him in the experiments he made to discover the composition of his ware and enamels. We next hear of him at Saintes about the year 1542, a married man with a large family and in poor circumstances, despite the fact of his carrying on three professions. Then it was that, in order to increase his means, he took to earthenware-making, and endeavoured to discover the composition of enamel. “ It is now more than five-and-twenty years,” he wrote, “ that a cup was shown to me of fashioned and enamelled clay, and of such beauty* that from that day I began to struggle with my own thoughts^ and turned in my mind sundry hints given me by various people when I used to paint images. . . . Hence, heedless of my having no knowledge of the different kinds of argillaceous earth, I tried to discover the art of making enamel, like a man gropmg in the darki' He was indeed groping in the dark, and to this may be traced the fifteen years’ misery he endured j but on the other hand his merit and superiority are due to the same cause. As a ceramic artist he is original and self-taught, although in Italy the manufacture of enamelled faience was then a common industry, and in France, as we have already pointed out, Girolamo della Robbia at Paris, and Abaquesne at Rouen, were success- fully following an art which it was in the power of everyone to learn. He was well aware of it, and in his art de ter)’e a sup- posed interlocutor says to him : “ I know thou hast suffered much poverty and trouble, and for this reason, that thou wast unable to leave thy family in order to learn the said art in some workshop^'' But in no zvorkshop could he have learnt the secret of his enamels, so pure, so brilliant, so rich and deep in tone, that they have never been equalled since, and admittedly rank amongst the most wonderful productions of human industry. His art is his own, and the opinion of a few German writers who pretend that Palissy was a pupil of Hirschvogel, of Nuremberg, cannot for a moment be seriously entertained. It is even doubtful whether * Probably an Italian cup. 24 FRENCH POTTERY. in his youth he went to Germany, and still more if he ever went so far as Nuremberg ; and besides, it was only a long time after his return that it occurred to him to study the art of ceramics, and to endeavour to make the white enamel which is hardly ever to be found in the Nuremberg faience of that time. • We will not follow the courageous artist through his painful trials, and the innumerable attempts he made before he discovered that white enamel, the object of his efforts and of his desires ; scolded and worried by his wife ; the laughing-stock of his fellow-citizens, who were unable to understand his ideas ; looked upon as a madman by some, as a coiner of base money by others; burdened with a large family, hunted up by pitiless creditors, he was more than once on the point of losing courage ; but his indomitable energy sustained him, and, undeterred by poverty or the wasting disease which he said “ le faisait secher sur les pieds^^' he resumed his researches. He has himself told us that his first successful experiment, imperfect as it was, gave him new energy. “ I said to myself. Why art thou sad, since thou hast found what thou wast seeking for? Work now, and thou wilt shame thy detractors.’^ He was, however, far from having entirely succeeded; and his last resources vanished with a wholly-spoilt kiln, in which all his hopes were centred. Far from being cast down by this failure, more painful even than the preceding ones, he “ thought to himself that the duty of a man who had fallen into a moat was to try and raise himself up again,” and after having worked at his old trades of glass- making and land-measuring, in order to earn a little money, and to partly pay off his debts, he renewed his attempts ; and after unsuccessfully feeling his way for a long time, during which he “ thought he was almost at death’s door,” he at last succeeded in making himself thorough master of his art. He first manufactured jaspered ware, or, to use his own words, “ those vessels of intermixed colours after the manner of jasper,” the making of which was for a few years his means of BERNARD PALISSY AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 25 livelihood. They are, from a purely artistic standpoint, his most perfect and interesting productions ; and even after practice had made him thoroughly acquainted with the potter’s art proper, Palissy never produced anything equal to his first faience, warmly and brilliantly coloured, and covered with pure and deeply-toned enamel. It is easy to see that it was manufactured under his direction, carefully enamelled by himself, and that he also superintended the firing. Not so in later years \ absorbed in his thoughts of religious proselytism, occupied in studying geology, in giving public lectures, and writing various works, whilst his repeated journeys kept him from home, he too often left his manufactory in strange hands, and the productions showed signs of decay. He then made his “ rustic ” dishes or basins, upon which he placed reptiles winding on a bed of ferns or moss, or fish swimming round an islet, in the centre of which is a gracefully- coiled snake, whilst the border is alive with lizards, frogs, and a thousand small insects {peiits bestmts), placed on leaves of oak, etc. Of all Palissy’s works they are the most personal and the most typical of his genius, which delighted in the reproduction of the wonders of nature, as also they remain the most popular. The selection of these ornaments is certainly open to objections but this once admitted, it is impossible not to praise unreservedly these magnificent rustic dishes and basins in which it is difficult to say what is to be most admired, the perfect imitation of natural objects, the skill displayed in the arrangement of the decorations, or the richness and purity of the enamel which covers them. * “ There is something incongruous in the aspect of a vase which is of im- possible practical use, even though it be purely ornamental. . . . And Palissy’s basins, representing a snake in an islet, round which fish are seen swimming, are, it must be admitted, strangely absurd when placed in a vertical position. It is idle to say that the rustic pieces were not made for use, but only destined to ornament a sideboard or panel ; it is none the less unpleasant to see a salt-cellar figured on a dish when that dish is placed against a wall.” — Charles Blanc, “Memoire lu a I’lnstitut, le 25 Octobre, 1873.” 26 FRENCH POTTERY, From this moment Palissy’s fame went on increasing; his basins and dishes were much sought after, and obtained him wealth and patronage. The most influential and faithful of his patrons was the Constable Anne de Montmorency, who entrusted him with important decorative works, now wholly destroyed, for his Chateau of Ecouen, to which we have alluded when dealing with enamelled tiles. It was the Constable de Montmorency who caused Palissy to be set at liberty, and perhaps saved his life, when carried away by his religious zeal, and his passion for proselytism in favour of the Reformed Church, he took part in the disturbances which broke out in Saintonge in 1562. Having been arrested and imprisoned at Bordeaux, he was on the eve of being tried, when the Constable, hearing of his incarceration, used all his influence at court to obtain for him, from the queen-mother, who ahnaii les arts comme une Medicis^^ the title of ‘‘Hnventeiir des Ricstiques Figulmes du Roy.'' He thus became a member of the royal household, and as such was outside the jurisdiction of the Parle me}it of Bordeaux. Soon afterwards he left Saintes — a place too suggestive to him of a life of troubles, misery, and privations — and settled at La Rochelle ; but his talent and energy required a larger field of activity, and in 1565 he was living in Paris. The patronage of Catherine de Medici and of the Constable de Montmorency was continued to him, and the queen-mother commanded the quondam poor potter, who had now become a sculpteur en ter re emaill'ee, to erect in the garden of the Tuileries rustic grottoes similar to those he had made for the Chateau d’Ecouen, for Reux in Normandy, and Chaulnes and Nesles in Picardy. Unfortunately nothing now remains of these grottoes named by Palissy himself ‘‘ grottes delectahles but it is easy to form an idea of them by the fragments moulded from nature or from shells, and the casts and vitrified bricks, found in 1865 in the Place du Carrousel, on the spot where the ovens of Palissy BERNAJ^n FALISSY ANE HIS FOLIO JVERS. 27 were situated at the time he was working for the queen-mother. When in Paris he published several of his writings, and among others, his book entitled “ Discours admirables de la Nature des Eaux et Fontaines, Me'taux, etc.,” in which, says INI. Chevreul, he shows himself to be so much in advance of his time by his phy- sical and agricultural observations, whilst most of his remarks indicate great originality of thought. It was also in Paris that he gave scientific lectures, attended by the learned men of his time, and advertised by placards posted in all the streets of the capital. But religious strifes soon broke out with greater intensity than ever, and Palissy, betrayed by one of his former co-religionists, was arrested in spite of his great age, and sent to prison ; all his patrons were dead, with the exception of the Due de Mayenne, who enjoyed sufficient credit to delay the judicial proceedings, but was unable to obtain his release ; and Palissy, who had begun life in poverty, died in the Bastille at the age of eighty, in the year 1590. The faience of Palissy, like the ware of Oiron, may be divided under three classes, corresponding to each of the phases of his life, the chief incidents of which we have briefly related. The first and second classes we have already mentioned, they comprise the jasper dishes and the rustic pieces ; the latter being for the greater part composed of basins almost invariably of oval shape and broad-rimmed, and measuring 50 and even 55 centimetres (19P and 21P inches) in length. The back of these pieces is covered with jaspered enamel of various tints ; the ewers and bottles or hunting-flasks are very scarce. The IMuseum possesses specimens of these two classes, and they are so beau- tiful, and in such wonderful state of preservation, that they seem fresh from the potter’s hands, as, for instance, the pieces numbered 7948-62, 79-65, 547^-59? 7W2-6c, 5961-59, 7940- 62, etc. The third class may be said to comprise all the pieces manu- factured by Palissy after he had taken up his abode in Paris, 28 FRENCH POTTERY. namely, the ornamented dishes and those decorated with figures. This category also includes the delicately-made open-work baskets and dishes (No. 78-65), some of which are furnished with small receptacles for holding spice (Nos. 7174 and 7175-60) ; the ewers copied from the etains of Briot or from the works of goldsmiths ; the salt-cellars decorated with grotesque masks and figures of sirens ; the sauce-boats, the candlesticks, and so many other FIG. 8. RUSTIC DISH WITH REPTILES AND FISHES, PALISSY WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 5476 — 1859. articles conceived in the pure and refined taste so characteristic of Palissy. If we consider the dishes ornamented with figures from an exclusively ceramic standpoint, they are generally inferior to the other productions of the great potter ; the enamel is less pure, less brilliant, and thinner ; they appear to us to have been manu- factured at the time when Palissy’s thoughts being engrossed by BERNARD FALISSY AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 29 scientific studies, he left the management of his workshops to his sons or relatives, Nicolas and Mathurin Palissy, whose names figure in the etat des depenses of Queen Catherine de Medici in connection with the payments made by her to them “on account of the enamelled grotto in the garden of the Tuileries.’^ FIG. 9. EWER, PALISSY WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 7178—1860. We do not believe that the bas-reliefs with which they are adorned are Palissy’s work, although this has often been asserted. The potter of Saintes, however vast his knowledge and varied his talents, was not conversant enough with the sculptor’s art to execute the refined, delicate, and finished works which decorate 30 FRENCH POTTERY. most of those dishes. Bat he was a moulder of rare skill, an ingenious arra?igeur, and we think it more probable that he engaged artists with whom he was acquainted to execute the bas-reliefs which he afterwards covered with magnificent enamel, or else that he took casts of some of their works when they harmonised with his own. A careful examination soon shows how widely they differ, and there are hardly two of them which denote the same handling ; and, besides, many of these bas-reliefs are copies of well-known works of Francois Briot and Barthelemy Prieur, whilst others are imitated from various com- positions by Leonard Gauthier, Rosso, and Primaticcio. The fact of these sculptures being made by other hands detracts nothing from the fame of Palissy, neither from the artistic value of those dishes, some of which are true master- pieces (Nos. 7178-60, 77-65, 170-79, etc.). When we consider the wonderful productions brought forth by tlie industry of this man of genius, we cannot help regretting that a sort of selfish feeling prevented him from confiding to others the secret of an art he had so laboriously originated and raised to so high a rank ; for Palissy had no pupils in the real sense of the word, as he never disclosed to his assistants the secret of making enamel. He consequently had no influence upon the ceramic art of his time ; and the potters who had worked under him, and to whom he left his moulds, made imitations of his works ; but their productions are mediocre, heavy, dull, coarse, and lacking in brilliancy. The difference between the pieces in the Museum numbered 3065-53, 537-65, and 7176-60, and the beautiful dishes we have referred to above is easily discovered at a glance. Among the manufactories where the Palissy ware was imitated, that of Avon, near Fontainebleau, produced a large number of pieces, chiefly statuettes, so perfectly executed that for a long time they were ascribed to the great potter. Herouard, the physician of the young King Louis XIII., who used to record in BERNARD FALISSY AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 31 his “ Diary ” every incident of interest to that sovereign, often mentions the pottery of Avon ; and the origin of several statuettes, such as the ‘‘ Nurse,” one of the most graceful enamelled plastic works, has thus been ascertained. We believe that the two pieces (Nos. 3067-53 and 2529-56), may be traced to the factory of Avon ; as to the mark (two B’s) on the latter, which is also found at the back of a few pieces of minor importance, namely of an esca?'got, in the Sbvres Museum, it is certainly not Palissy’s mark, although, for some unknown reason, it has sometimes been ascribed to him. It would be strange indeed were he to have marked pieces of indifferent execution, and of no artistic value, while neglecting to sign the masterpieces to which he owed his fame. Among the other French potteries of the sixteenth century we must mention those of Savignies and La Chapelle-aux-Pots, small villages in the neighbourhood of Beauvais, where, besides the glazed earthenware of which we have already spoken, a kind of stoneware covered with plain blue enamel was also manu- factured. This ware, mentioned by Rabelais and the historians of that period, by whom it is termed “azure pottery,” was of sufficient value to be presented to sovereigns. It is now rather scarce. Lastly, as early as the sixteenth century, Avignon was pro- ducing pottery covered with a chestnut brown glaze, either plain or spotted, in imitation of tortoiseshell, and of elegant shapes, somewhat Italian in character. The manufacture of this pottery was continued until the middle of the eighteenth century (No. 544-65)- CHAPTER V. STANNIFEROUS-ENAMELLED FAIENCE. With the exception of the few isolated and fruitless attempts we have recorded, all the productions of French ceramic art which we have hitherto studied belong to the class of ‘‘glazed pottery,” z.e. covered with a translucent lead glaze or varnish a base de plomb. Faience, properly so-called, coated with the opaque white stanniferous enamel, known to the Italians as early as the end of the fifteenth century, and turned by them to such good account, was not known and regularly manufactured in France until the beginning of the seventeenth century. This new industry soon took great extension, and French faience, next to the exclusively artistic works of the Italian renaissance, occupies one of the most important places in the history of European ceramic art, on account of its exceptional originality and variety and excellence of workmanship, both as regards form and decoration. The history of French faience may be divided under two very distinct periods. During the first period the manufacture of faience was exclusively confined to the ware decorated by the process termed grand feu on email cru — that is on unbaked enamel ; the second period, commencing towards the middle of the eighteenth century, comprises faience painted on already baked enamel, with colours fusible at a lower temperature than the enamel. In the first class the metallic oxides incorporate with the STANNIFEROUS-ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 33 fusing enamel, thus forming a homogeneous body. This process of decoration, owing to the difficulty of applying the colours on the pulverulent and absorbent enamel, does not admit of great delicacy of execution ; but on the other hand it is unequalled for vigorous and varied colouring, richness, durability, and soft- ness of tints. Such was the true faience in the making of which France, for upwards of a century, had no rival, and some examples of which are justly considered as real works of art. Nevers, Rouen, and Moustiers were the chief centres of production of French faience, and their influence on secondary manufactories, even abroad, is considerable. Moreover, their productions are so clearly characteristic and different that, for want of another denomination, it is sufficient, in technical ceramic language, simply to allude to the style of Rouen or of Nevers or of Moustiers to carry to the mind the idea of a whole ensemble., a whole school of decoration. These three manufactories and their successors are represented in the Museum by remarkable specimens which we will review in chronological order, at the same time endeavouring to define their chief characteristics, and relating the various historical peculiarities which may assist in classifying them. Nevers, and School of Nevers. Louis de Gonzague, who was related to Catherine de Medici, and became Due de Nivernais by his marriage in 1565 with Henriette de Cleves, the eldest of the three daughters of the last Due de Nevers, had summoned to France a number of Italian artists and artisans, one of whom was a faience-maker, by name Scipion Gambin, doubtless a relative of Julien Gambin, of whom we have spoken in connection with the Lyons faience manufactory, and, like the latter, probably a native of Faenza. His name appears on the registers of various churches of Nevers, D french pottery. 1„ h. ...Od to S0V...1 child,.., .ith the oi potliier. _ , In the absence of historical documents relating to the IMLGRIM’S BOTTLE, NEVERS WARE SOUTH HENslNGTON manufactory he under his the first faience ma .hane and the ornaments of •St:e rtr;::r“’r.aiolicas oi the declining potteries STANNIFEROUS ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 35 of Urbino and Faenza; like the latter, it is invariably decorated with mythological or allegorical subjects (Figs. 10 and ii), and incidents taken from Roman history or the Old Testament ; the outline is traced with manganese, and the painting is inferior in FIG. II. PLATEAU, NEVERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 363— 1870. beauty and purity to that of the faience it was intended to imitate, owing to the absence of the special glaze {inarzacotto) used by the Italian potters to cover their paintings, and which served as a kind of translucent varnish, thus admitting of the D 2 36 FRENCH POTTERY. employment of more brilliant and varied colours. It must also be said that, at that time, the use of this superadded glaze had been discontinued in almost every pottery in the Italian peninsula. This kind of decoration, of which a few examples, dating from the origin of the manufactory, are of very fair riG, 12 . VASE, NEVERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 364—1870. workmanship, was continued even after rival factories were established with the purpose of manufacturing a different kind of ware in which oriental influence was distinguishable ; and we see it employed on ware of a characteristic Chinese shape unknown to the Italians (Fig. 12). STA NNIFER O US-ENAMELLED FALENCE. 3 7 ‘This manufacture was not very important, nor was it carried on for any length of time, if we are to judge from the com- paratively small number of the pieces now extant ; and although a few dishes in the Italian taste with subject-figures are occasion- FIG. 13. PLATE, NEVERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 389 — 1870. ally to be found dating from the middle or even the end of the seventeenth century, they were evidently isolated productions, and are so poor in design and workmanship that they appear to be the work of some clumsy and pretentious decorator rather than the productions of a regular manufacture. 38 FRENCH POTTERY. We find mentioned for the first time, in authentic documents of the year 1608, a manufactory situated in the Rue St. Genest, No. 12, and belonging to two Italians, the brothers Conrade, who came from Savona, a small town on the coast of Genoa, renowned for its faience. We are unable to say whether the brothers Conrade were the founders of this manufactory, or the successors of Scipion Gambin ; in any case from that time a new kind of decoration was introduced in the faience of Nevers. The shapes preserved their Italian character ; but the blue camaieu., occasion- ally heightened with manganese, was substituted for the poly- chrome decoration of Faenza. Historical and mythological subjects were superseded by variegated ornaments, disposed at random, without any preconceived plan, and, for the greater part, in imitation of the oriental porcelain now being introduced into Europe. In many instances, Italian ornaments were mingled with figures, designs, or flowers copied from Chinese porcelain (Fig. 13).^ Dominique Conrade, the head of the family, became a naturalised French subject, and finally settled at Nevers; his son, Antoine Conrade, who succeeded him, obtained, through high patronage, during the minority of Louis XIV., the title of Faiencier de la Maison du Roy, “estant bien informe de son industrie et grande experience a faire toutes sortes de vaisseaux de faience, quelle science rare et particuliere estait reservee secrettement de pere en fils en la maison de Dominique de Conrade.” In the year 1672, his grandson, who was named Dominique after the founder of the house, was enjoying the title of Maistre Faiencier ordinaire de Sa Majeste, and he appears to have been the last member of that family which, during three successive generations, carried on an industry whose importance soon grew considerable, whilst its influence on the manufacture of Nevers faience was incontestable. There are several pieces now extant bearing in full the mark de Conrade a Neversi^ The Conrades did not enjoy for long the exclusive monopoly STANNIFEROUS-ENAMELLED FAIENCE, 39 of faience-making, for, as early as 1632, rival factories were established, one of them being that of Pierre Custode,' who had in his sons worthy successors, perfectly able to compete with the Conrades. It is generally admitted (but there is no positive evidence ot FIG. 14. pilgrim’s bottle, NEVERS ware. south KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 427 — 1853. the fact) that the magnificent faience objects, with a Persian blue ground, decorated with a white pigment, called hla 7 ic fixe, or blanc de 7 'ehaut (Fig. 14), often heightened with opaque yellow, and justly considered as the most perfect pieces produced at Nevers, were first manufactured by the Custodes at their pottery, 40 FRENCH POTTERY. at the sign of V Autruche (the Ostrich). Nothing can equal in purity and depth this beautiful blue glaze, on which arabesques, flowers, birds, and sometimes animals, and even figures in the oriental style, stand out in white. The Museum possesses an interesting and numerous collection of such pieces, of various FIG. 15. VASE WITH COVER, NEVERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 370 — 1870. shapes and decorations, amongst which two fine vases (No. 373-70), two charming plates (Nos. 377 and 378-70), and the cup on stand (379-70), deserve special notice on account of their splendid enamel. The last-mentioned piece is decorated STANNIFEROUS-ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 41 with blanc fixe (pure white), and two different tones of yellow — a rather rare style of decoration, which is repeated on the Chinese-shaped vase. No. 370-70 (Fig. 15). This manufacture, which is peculiar to Nevers, has afterwards been imitated by several French and foreign potters, who were unable to produce a blue equal to that of Nevers,* and seems to have been in favour for a long time before it went out of fashion. Besides the pieces made for use, large ornamental objects were also manufactured. One of the finest and most important of these is a large ewer (No. 384-70), 2 feet 8^ inches in height. The notable difference in the workmanship of a large number of pieces, and especially the more or less beautiful quality, purity and depth of the blue glaze which covers this faience, leads to the inference that several potters were simultaneously engaged in the manufacture of this ware, although in all the pieces the ornaments are copied from oriental porcelain. The importation of potteries from the East had consider- able influence on the ornamentation of the ware of Nevers during the latter end of the seventeenth and the commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and Chinese porcelain, more especially when decorated with figures, was for a long time copied, or rather imitated by the Nevers potters. We say wiitated purposely, because the artists of that city generally confined themselves to borrow- ing from Chinese porcelain a few ornamental designs, which they afterwards transferred to their productions with the greatest freedom, and irrespective of their appropriateness. In many cases the designs they copied and kept to be utilised in case of need were associated on one and the same piece with Italian decorations ; and the so-called Chinese figures, so much in vogue under the reign of Louis XIV., are also found on many * The exceptional quality of the blue glaze, and the purity of the enamel of that beautiful faience, for a long time caused its origin to be mistaken. The celebrated Brongniart, in his “Traite des Arts Ceramiques,” ascribes to it a Persian origin, and the first pieces of this kind acquired by the Ceramic Museum of Sevres were entered on the registers as Persian ware. 42 FRENCH POTTERY. pieces (No. 386-70, Fig. 16). This decoration is always painted m blue camaieu.^ and whatever may be the spirit in which it has been conceived and executed, it is a remarkable fact that the blue is invariably of a wonderful tone. FIG. 16. AIGUli:RF, NEVERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 386—1870. In a large number of pieces the blue is mixed with man- ganese, employed sometimes for drawing the outline of figures, and sometimes as the only pigment for certain portions of the decoration (No. 385^-70, Fig. 17) and in every instance the blending of these two colours — an intense blue and a purple- black manganese — produces a harmonious effect. STANNJFER O US-ENAMELLED EALENCE. 43 The manufacture of this kind of ware was not carried on for a very long time, and the faience we have just mentioned, and in which a certain artistic feeling is distinguishable, soon made way for more common productions. FIG. 17. PLATEAU OR BASIN, NEVERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 385a — 1870. In the early part of the eighteenth century coarsely-painted plates bearing the figure of the patron saint and name of the person for whom they were intended, and dated, were manufac- tured in thousands; also large quantities of dishes ornamented with subjects and attributes relating to the profession of the 44 FRENCH POTTERY. bespeaker, as well as pilgrim bottles or flasks, and particularly salad-bowls, some of which are decorated with gross and even licentious scenes, whilst the images of saints drawn with a sem- blance of art as long as the Italian influence lasted, now became altogether grotesque. But the manufacture of these objects was so extensive, and the trade done in them through the boatmen of the Loire was so considerable, that the faience of Nevers was spread all over France, and even exported to England, as recorded by a Nevers poet, Pierre de Frasnay by name, who published in the Mercure de France, in the year 1735, a poem on Fayence, in which the following lines occur : Que vois-je? J’apergois sur nos heureux rivages L’etranger chaque jour affrontant les orages, Se charger a I’envi de fayence a Nevers, Et porter notre nom au bout de I’univers. Le superbe Paris et Londres peu docile Payent, qui le croira? tribut a notre ville. Notwithstanding the praise so lavishly bestowed by the author on the faience of his country, we are unable to share his enthu- siasm, for in the latter part of the eighteenth century the potters of Nevers only produced heavy and common ware very indif- ferently ornamented. In this class must be included the coarse faience articles manufactured at the time of the Revolution, and known under the name of Faiences Patriotiques , we hardly know for what reason. They are generally covered with unsightly daubs and do not deserve notice. At no period were the potters of Nevers able to produce the red so successfully employed in other manufactories, and notably at Rouen ; even when imitating the ware of rival factories they substituted for the red colour a dark yellow of unharmonious and unpleasant tone. Upon the whole, although the manufacture of Nevers faience was one of the most important on account of its extension, it is from an artistic point of view of little interest in the history of STANNIFEROUS-ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 45 the ceramic art, on the development of which it had hardly any influence. A few secondary manufactories whose productions of a similar kind were inferior even to the Nevers faience (which was bad enough) had no importance whatever, and their names — La Charite, Auxerre, Ancy-le-Franc — have only been preserved to us as being recorded in the “ Dictionnaire du Commerce.” With the exception of the mark of the Conrades on some pieces of early manufacture, and that of a potter of the name of Haly, who is known as the maker of plates and baskets orna- mented with fruits, flowers, and eggs, modelled in relief so truth- fully as to deceive the eye {en tro 7 upe Iceil), and decorated with boldly-painted bouquets, the potteries of Nevers bear no dis- tinctive sign or mark that can assist in ascribing them with certainty to any particular maker. CHAPTER VI. ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN. In order to follow a chronological method, we have mentioned the faience of Nevers before that of Rouen ; but from the point of view of French art the former is far less important than the latter. With the exception of the few brilliant examples we have noticed, Nevers, as we have already explained, produced nothing but faience of a coarse texture, of rude and common workmanship, and with decoration lacking originality. It is not so with Rouen. In the history of the French ceramic art of the latter end of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, the old Norman city takes certainly the first place, and the high value set by refined connoisseurs upon the beautiful pieces manufactured in its numerous and flourishing potteries is due more to their incontestable artistic merit than to their comparative rarity or to a foolish craze. It is to be assumed that the manufacture introduced by Masseot Abaquesne in the middle of the sixteenth century, and already mentioned by us when speaking of the enamelled tiles of the Chateau d’Ecouen (see page 8), was extinct since the death of that unfortunate potter; for until the year 1644 no mention is made in any document which would enable us to assert with certainty that there was at Rouen a manufactory of stanniferous-enamelled faience. In that year, Nicolas Poirel, Sieur de Grandval, Usher of the Queen’s Closet, obtained a licence for ^^fabriqiier et vendre la faience dans toiite la province de Norniandief which he soon sold ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 47 to Edme Poterat, whose agent he is supposed to have been. For want of better evidence, to Poterat (whose son rendered such service to French industry) the credit is due of having introduced at Rouen the manufacture of that faience wFich occupies so im- portant a place in the history of European ceramics. Immediately after the granting of this privilege a manufactory was established, and a faience object in the Ceramic Museum at Rouen bears the following inscription, ^Haict a Rouen en 1647.’' From the shape and ornamentation of the few pieces which can with certainty be referred to the Rouen manufacture of the first period, we are led to' suppose that the art of faience-making was brought to Normandy by potters who came from Nevers. As at Nevers, so at Rouen, the influence of the art of Savona is plainly distinguishable, and this opinion seems to be confirmed by the fact that several deeds drawn up at Rouen at that time bear the signature of a certain Custode, potiei', who was no doubt related to the Custodes of Nevers. But the first period was of short duration, and under the direction of Louis Poterat, Sieur de St. Etienne, who, in 1673, had obtained a fresh privilege, the Norman potters wFo had hitherto confined themselves to imitate the productions of others ceased to do so, and elaborated that beautiful and essentially French style of scallop decoration, termed a lambrequins and a broderies (No. 426-70, Fig. 18), the designs of which were copied from textile fabrics, lace, marqueterie, or from the ornaments and tail-pieces to be found in the books of the same period. In the early part of the eighteenth century the manufactories grew numerous. It was then that the potters, established for the greater part in the suburb of St. Sever, and who were employing upwards of two thousand men, vied in their efforts to produce beautiful and sumptuous faience worthy of adorning the tables of the great. For at that time the finances of France having been exhausted by the expenses entailed by continuous wars, the inun- dations on the Loire, and especially the famine of 1709, “every 48 FRENCH POTTERY. possible thing was turned into money,” and a few courtiers who, in order to assist the treasury, had taken their silver plate to the mint and had replaced it with faience, soon found many imitators. This is recorded in many contemporaneous letters and mhnoires. FIG. l8. PLATEAU, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 426 — 1870. On the 8th of June, 1702, !Madame, Duchess of Orleans, sister- indaw to Louis XIV., wrote : The famine is so great that some children have eaten each other. The King is so determined to go on with the war that he has, yesterday, substituted faience for his gold plate; he has sent all the objects in gold he possessed to the ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN. 49 mint to be coined into louis.” St. Simon confirms this in his Memoires {annee 1709) : ‘^All the great and illustrious personages were in a week provided with faience ; they ransacked the shops and developed a frantic enthusiasm for that ware {inirent le feu d cette marchandise). . . . The movement was set on foot by the King, who sent his gold plate to the mint, and the Due d’Orleans what little he had.” It was then that were manufactured those splendid faience services with rich blue decoration, admirable examples of which are in the Museum, and which bear in the centre or on the border remarkably disposed coats of arms, in which the tinctures or colours are figured by the conventional lines used by heraldic engravers. For, although at that time the polychrome decoration which was to become so important was already known, the faience- makers of Rouen almost exclusively confined themselves to the manufacture of pieces decorated with blue, either pure or height- ened with Indian red. The lainb 7 'equin, or scallop pattern, already mentioned by us, was generally traced in blue, and consisted of two alternate corresponding designs so repeated as to form a more or less rich border. The lambreqitins were always composed of scalloped leaves, palms and scrolls standing out in white on a ground worked up {I'echampi) in blue and often connected by pendentives or wreaths delicately rising against the whiteness of the enamel. The centre is invariably occupied by a floriated ornament copied from the works of Berain or from the typographic decora- tions to be found in the valuable printed books of the end of the seventeenth century. Of these ornaments, the most in vogue and most frequently found on faience, both fine or de luxe and common, is composed of a basket filled with ornamental flowers symmetrically disposed (Figs. 19 and 20); all the manufactories have copied it, and it is sometimes used with rich decorations. This symmetrical disposition is one of the most characteristic features of the blue decoration of Rouen ; when the details of the E FRENCH POTTERY. 5 ° FIG. 19. DISH, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM NO. 425— 1S7O. ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN FIG. 20 . TRAY, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 420 — 1870. 52 FRENCH POTTERY. richest and seemingly the most elaborate ornaments are closely examined, it is surprising to see how simple and ingenious was the process resorted to by the Norman artists (Fig. 21). Even FIG. 21. PLATE, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 437—1870. for the admirable decoration termed style rayoiuiant, which consists of a design rising from the border of the piece and con- verging towards the centre, and forming brilliant and symmetrical combinations in the style of the rose-windows of old cathedrals,* * Nos. 401, 402, 424, 427 (1870), in the Museum. ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 53 it has been found sufficient to stencil a fragment of it which, when repeated, gave the whole of the decoration. The beautiful pieces with a central medallion and border ornamented with scrolls and light arabesques of a dark and almost FIG. 22 . PLATEAU, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 396 — 1870. black blue, standing out on a yellow ochre ground, belong to the same period. Five of these rare and remarkable pieces are in the Museum, two of which in particular deserve special notice. One of them is a large dish (No. 396-70, Fig. 22) having a 54 FRENCH POTTERY. central medallion with lobed edges and a ground of arabesques, on which three amorini stand out in white slightly shaded with blue. Of these amorini., one plays the violoncello, whilst the other two are dancing ; the border consists of rich scallops or lambrequms connected by pendentives and wreaths. This fine dish evidently FIG. 23. PLATE, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 399—1870. belonged to a service several pieces of which are even now to be found in private collections and museums, and particularly a mag- nificent centre-piece in the Sevres Museum ; but we believe it to be the only piece of this kind in which the scallop-border and medallion with a7?iorini appear together. In all other faience ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 55 objects with a yellow-ochre decoration, the border of the same colour is ornamented with arabesques, or checked mosaics inter- spersed with oval medallions with blue scrolls. The other piece is also a dish (399-70, Fig. 23) with a central medallion encircling a rich coat of arms surmounted by a ducal crown ; the border is ornamented with scrolls in the style of the elegant and artistic wrought-iron work of that period. These two magnificent pieces may justly rank among the most remarkable productions of the Rouen industry of the commencement of the eighteenth century. We must also mention, as examples of exceptional decora- tion of the first period, the faience objects with a lapis-lazuli or Persian blue ground, on which flowers and insects in the oriental style, enclosed in a firmly-drawn line, stand out in white or yellow. This faience was made as an imitation of the cele- brated Nevers ware of which we have spoken before (page 39); but although in the Rouen ware the drawing is more correct and careful, the blue ground is far from equalling in purity and depth that which the potters of Nevers alone seem to have produced. The manufacture of these pieces does not appear to have been very extensive, and specimens are rather scarce. As we have stated above, the polychrome decoration also dates from the commencement of the eighteenth century, but seems to have been much less exclusively practised than the blue ornaments, especially for table services. Originally it consisted of the same decorative designs as the lamhrequms , but more varied in their disposition ; later, it became more important and more original, as servile copies were discontinued. Among the polychrome patterns employed by the potters of Rouen, that originated by a faience-maker named Guillebaud, or Guillibaud, deserves to be noticed; it is composed of Chinese temples and floriated landscapes brilliantly and boldly painted, and conceived in the pseudo-oriental taste of that time ; it is distinguishable chiefly by the very peculiar borders, consisting of 5 ^ FRENCH POTTERY. a black and red check pattern interspersed with white spaces on which bouquets or flowers are gracefully disposed. At a later date the influence of the 7 'ocaille style, so much in vogue towards the middle of the eighteenth century, made itself felt in the decoration of the polychrome faience of Rouen, when symmetry was replaced by fancy ; the borders were then covered with flowers disposed somewhat at random, but always very tastefully, and painted in lively, harmonious, and brilliant colours with a boldness and dexterity which gave infinite charm to the composition (Fig. 25). The shape of the ornamental flowers, and notably of the carnations and chrysanthemum flowers, recalls FIG. 24. EXAMPLE OF EORDER DECORATION OF ROUEN WARE, BY GUILLEBAUD. to mind the decoration of Chinese porcelain, but so modified and so characteristic that the copy makes us forget the model. In many cases the central ornaments are composed of trophies or musical instruments, crossed quivers, and lighted torches, etc. The “ quiver ” pattern, of which there are so many examples, may be considered as the type of this manufacture. Soon afterwards the “cornucopia” pattern was introduced, and must have been in fashion for a considerable time, if we are to judge from the number of pieces still extant. This pattern consists of a cornucopia from which are showered flowers, chiefly carnations, birds, butterflies, and insects, painted in brilliant ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 57 colours, red and yellow predominating. The “ single ” and “ double cornucopia ” pattern was produced in endless variety and persisted for a long time, and with its disappearance the history of the decoration, as also of the manufacture, of the faience of Rouen closes. The important successive events following closely upon one another in France, and which were far from being favourable to commerce, the use of porcelain, which was becoming general, and above all, the treaties of FIG. 25. DISH, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 446 — 1870. commerce concluded with England, permitting the introduction into France of the fine Staffordshire potteries, which found a ready sale on account of their novelty, cheapness, and superior quality, all contributed to bring about the decline of faience, hitherto in such high favour, and which, in a short time, was used only for the lowest domestic purposes. English faience and porcelain were certainly neater and more resisting, but it must also be admitted, less artistic, and, above all, less pleasant to the eye. FRENCH POTTERY. FIG. 26. AIGUltRE, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH NO. 392—1870. KENSINGTON MUSEUM; ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 59 FIG. 27. BUST AND PEDESTAL, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 4551 — 1857. 6o FRENCH POTTERY. A few faience-makers of Rouen, one of them being Levasseur, with a view to struggle against the new taste, tried to apply to faience the ornaments used for decorating porcelain; but their efforts were fruitless, and, at the close of the eighteenth century, no traces were left of this beautiful industry, formerly so flourishing, and, for upwards of a century, the pride of the old Norman city. All the decorative patterns we have mentioned in this short historical sketch were most effectively employed by the Norman potters with truly remarkable skill ; and the superiority of the faience of Rouen lies, in our estimation, in the constant harmony to be observed between the shape and the decoration, so that the one enhances the value of the other, for it is owing to this almost architectural decorating process, that each ornamental detail occupies its proper place (Fig. 26). The most remarkable feature in this manufacture is the great variety of objects produced, from the great ornamental pieces or Tapparat., to the finest and most delicate objects. In the first class, special mention must be made of the five large busts and stands, four of which, representing the “Seasons,” are at present in the Louvre, whilst the fifth, representing “Apollo,” belongs to the South Kensington Museum, having been presented to the trustees in 1857 by the Duke of Hamilton (Fig. 27). These five pieces, ornamented with polychrome flowers and designs in the richest rocaille style, may be considered as the most remarkable productions of the Norman ceramists of the eighteenth century; they were made about the year 1740, at the manufactory of Nicolas Fouquay, which formerly belonged to Louis Poterat, and where the most perfect works of the nascent Norman industry were brought out. Amongst the less important productions we ought to men- tion the helmet-shaped ewers (Fig. 28), the wall-fountains, the church-lamps with pouting cherubs’ heads, the sugar-sifters with open work and screwing dome-shaped covers (Fig. 29), the ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 6i brackets, spice-boxes, jardinieres (Fig. 30), wine-coolers, and especially the cider-jugs bearing the name of their owner, and the image of his patron saint ; there is in the Museum one of FIG. 28. EWER, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 430 — 1870. the most interesting of these jugs, dated 1737, and bearing the name and figure of St. Jeanne (No. 2532-56). With the exception of the images of saints on cider-jugs, 62 FRENCH POTTERY. figures are seldom found on the faience of Rouen, save in that of the first period, on which are represented personages copied from Chinese porcelain. At a later date, several artists, amongst FIG. 29. SUGAR SIFTERS, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NOS. 428 AND 421 — 1870. whom were Claude Borne and Leleu, ornamented a few pieces with subjects copied from engravings; but these pieces are remarkable only on account of their rarity (Nos. 393-70, 445-70, and 453-70)* ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 63 A large number of faience objects of Rouen manufacture are marked at the back with letters and monograms, but in the absence of authentic documents they cannot be ascribed to FIG. 30. JARDINI£:RE or flower-pot, ROUEN WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 412 — 187O. particular manufactories, and we think it useless to mention them in this work. SCHOOL OF ROUEN : Paris — St. - Cloud — Sinceny — Qjubnper — Lille, etc. The great vogue enjoyed by the faience of Rouen, and the success obtained from the first by its various styles of decora- tion, were calculated to cause, and did cause, a large number of second-rate manufactories to copy the ware which had so rapidly become fashionable. If, indeed, some of the imitations were 64 FRENCH POTTERY. servile and clumsy, others, on the contrary, were due to clever artists, who so skilfully contrived gradually to modify the style of their models, whilst preserving the original decorative idea, that they created an almost new style, interesting from an artistic point of view, and deserving careful study. Such was the case with the manufactories of Paris, St.-Cloud, Sinceny, Quimper, etc. Paris . — There were at all times in Paris earthenware as well as faience, and even porcelain manufactories ; but, owing to some unexplainable cause, their history has never been written, at least in a complete manner, and nothing, or very little, is known as regards the time when they were established, the names of their owners, and the exact nature of their productions. However, after a careful examination of several pieces of un- doubted origin, we are able to trace some of the chief charac- teristics of the Paris faience. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the manufacture appears rather rude, the paste is coarse, the enamel is grayish, often blistered, and, m some places, shows signs of having run, the drawing is boldly executed and encircled by a vigorously- drawn black line ; the decoration, especially that of the borders, is freely copied from that of Rouen, and consists of the same scallops, with scrolls, and foliated ornaments standing out in white on a blue ground ; but it is easy to see that the decorators employed had not, like the Norman painters, a thorough know- ledge of the various patterns which ought to accompany them ; for they are nearly always clumsily joined together, and, in many instances, altogether unconnected. A great many articles of Paris faience made at that time bear facetious and bacchanalian inscriptions, and also proper names, and the centre is often occupied by subiect-figures representing popular scenes, rather coarsely painted. Most of that faience is decorated in blue, although a few manufactories also copied the polychrome ornamentation of ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 65 Rouen, but were not successful in their attempts to imitate the beautiful red of the Norman faience ; in many instances the red is dull, whilst in other cases it has been simply replaced by a dark yellow ochre of a very peculiar tone, and which may often assist in distinguishing the Parisian polychrome faience of the first half of the eighteenth century. The only manufactory whose productions are known with certainty is that of Digne, who lived in the Rue de la Roquette, and was commanded by the Abbess of Chelles, daughter of the Due d’Orleans, who was Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV., to manufacture the pharmacy pots and bottles used in her abbey. These objects are decorated in blue and citrine yellow, in imitation of the Rouen ware, and are emblazoned with a lozenge-shaped shield, bearing the arms of the Orleans family. They may be considered as the type of the Parisian faience of that period. Later on the manufacture improved, the paste became lighter, the enamel whiter, and the decoration more carefully executed ; the blue central rosettes, discarded by the Rouen potters for the quivers and cornucopiae, were preserved ; but were often modified, and transformed into most elegant and varied compositions. But the Parisian potters excelled chiefly in the manufacture of large white faience stoves, and pier chimneys, ornamented with masks, wreaths, and columns surmounted by capitals and baskets of flowers, which were real works of art, equal to the most charming architectural conceptions of the last century, and formed so appropriate a decoration to the sumptuous apartments of times gone by. The library of the Soane Museum possesses the only known copy of a book* in which a number of designs of these stoves are reproduced. They were manufactured in the Rue de la Roquette, * “ Collection de dessins des poeles de forme antique et moderne de I’invention et de la manufacture du Sieur Ollivier, Rue de la Roquette, Faubourg St. Antoine.” F 66 ' FRENCH POTTERY. at the house of le Sieur OlHvier. Although this work belongs to a period of decay, it nevertheless can give an idea of this manu- facture, for which the Parisian faience-makers had acquired so great a renown, and the productions of which were formerly so remarkable and charmingly artistic. St.-Clotid . — As early as the end of the seventeenth century several faience manufactories were established in the environs of Paris ; but very little is known of them, and the works that are attributed to them are generally so coarse and so similar to those of the Parisian potteries that we deem it unnecessary to mention them in this work. An exception, however, must be made for the manufactory of St.-Cloud, which occupies an important place in the history of French ceramics, not only on account of its faience, but because it is the first which regularly fabricated the soft porcelain., which was destined to produce so many wonderful works. The manufactory of St.-Cloud was founded towards the end of the seventeenth century by Chicanneau and his sons, and began by copying the Rouen style of decoration, encircled, as was the custom in Paris, by a dark line, but more discreetly drawn, and, so to say, less coarse. To the Rouen patterns original designs were soon added, consisting generally of large conventional floriated scrolls, rising out of a central knop, and denoting a knowledge of the laws of decoration. They also manufactured at St.-Cloud the faience services intended for the royal residences, the pieces of which bear on a cartouche, surmounted by the royal crown, the initial letter of the castle for which they were made. After Chicanneau’s death his widow married Henri Trou, who became the director of the manufactory, and marked his faience with the well-known initials to be found at the back of objects of soft porcelain : (St.-Cloud — Trou). ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 67 The blue of St.-Cloud is rather slaty in colour, especially in the carefully-executed pieces ; we do not know of any poly- chrome faience that can, with certainty, be attributed to that factory. Sinceny . — Of all the manufactories which imitated Rouen, the most important, and the productions of which were for a long time taken for Rouen ware, so similar were they to the latter, is undoubtedly the manufactory of Sinceny, a small town in the Departement de VAisne. The first director of this factory at its origin, towards 1713, was a Rouen man, Pierre Pelleve, who had brought with him a number of Norman workmen, and introduced in the new manufactory the processes and style of decoration adopted in his country. The faience of Sinceny so closely resembles that of Rouen of the same period that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other at first sight • the Sinceny enamel, however, is slightly bluish, and the red is always glazed, whilst that of Rouen is the more often dull, or a little blistered. At a later period the decoration was transformed, and became more original \ the dishes and plates were covered with Chinese figures, pagodas, flowers, and insects, painted in brilliant colours, among which the beautiful and vivid citrine yellow, which is the predominating and characteristic pigment in the faience of Sinceny, is particularly conspicuous. Although dating from the last period of this manufacture, and somewhat clumsily executed, the pieces (Nos. 452-70 and 454-70) may, in the absence of other examples, illustrate the difference between the faience of Rouen and that of Sinceny, which is generally marked in blue, thus : F 2 68 FRENCH POTTERY. This mark is even found on pieces the back of which has not been glazed — a rather frequent occurrence. Quimper . — The manufactory of Quimper, like that of Sinceny, was under the direction of a native of Rouen, Pierre Caussy, an intelligent man and a skilful artist, who soon modified the decora- tive patterns of which he had brought the tradition, and especially tried to transform the cornucopice and quivers., so much in vogue at Rouen. His wares, often marked with a C, are distinguishable by their somewhat coarse paste, their gray enamel, and, above all, by the outlines rather roughly traced in manganese violet. When, towards the close of the last century, porcelain, or the fine English wares, were substituted almost universally for decorated faience, the manufactory of Quimper exclusively pro- duced stoneware and glazed pottery, and managed to subsist whilst so many rival establishments disappeared entirely. All the materials formerly used for faience-making were put away in lumber-rooms, there to be forgotten for more than sixty years. But when — under the influence of the great artistic current, which has been felt for the last twenty years, and ushered in, as it were, a revival of the ceramic art — faience came into fashion again, the old designs and models, together with the books in which the processes and secrets peculiar to the manufactory of Caussy were recorded, were brought to light again; and faience articles were made and decorated in the style of the last century with such perfection that several unscrupulous dealers, having purchased the newly-made pieces, were able — after previously giving them the appearance of old ware — to palm them off upon a great number of collectors for authentic Vieux Rouen. We must, however, add that the director of the manufactory of Quimper, M. Fougeray, wishing to keep aloof from this unfair traffic, and to prevent its being carried on as far as lay in his power, ordered all his faience to be marked with the monogram ROUEN, AND SCHOOL OF ROUEN 69 of the company whose director he was; and all the pieces made at his works are marked at the back : (La Hubaudiere et Cie.). All faience thus marked can, beyond all doubt, be con- sidered as being of modern manufacture, and made at the manufactory established in the Faubourg de Loc-Maria, at Quimper. Lille . — This manufactory, founded about the year 1696, by a faience-maker named Jacques Feburier, or Febvrier, a native of Tournay, originally made servile copies of the Rouen decoration ; but soon afterwards the ornaments were modified, without becoming quite original, and the Norman style was associated with designs imitated from the Dutch faience of Delft, which was now getting well-known, particularly in the north of France. At a later date, and under the management of Frangois Boussemaert, son-in-law and successor of Feburier, the manufactory of Lille became important, and, in order to meet the demands made upon it, all the kinds of faience then in fashion were manufactured there. But if many of the pieces fabricated at that time faithfully reproduce the Norman patterns they are easily distinguishable, as lacking that freedom and deliberateness of execution so characteristic of the Norman models. When closely examined the difference between the copy and the original becomes discernible ; the blue also is less intense, and the shading is softer. This softness in the colouring is to be found in almost all the faience of Lille, and notably in certain polychrome decorations, and in elegant rocaille ornaments, surrounding subject- figures, executed in graduated and blended colours, which strongly contrast with the bold and somewhat crude tones of the Norman potters. 70 FRENCH POTTERY. Frangois Boussemaert used to mark his faience with his initials : And this monogram is to be seen at the back of a dish in the FIG. 31. PLATE, LILLE WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 435—1870. Museum (No. 435-70, Fig. 31), which may be considered as one of the most remarkable specimens of the faience of Lille, and the decoration of which is exclusively composed of Norman patterns. CHAPTER VII. MOUSTIERS, STRASBURG, NIEDERWILLER, LUNEVILLE^ MARSEILLES, ETC. We have only enumerated above those manufactories which, although they originally imitated the productions of Rouen, ultimately succeeded in modifying their style of decoration so as to make it appear almost original ; but a large number of other potteries, both in France and abroad, have vied in copying that beautiful faience so much in vogue and sought after, more par- ticularly in the early part of the eighteenth century. As regards the important manufacturing districts, such as Nevers, Moustiers, or Strasburg, the copies are easily distinguishable because they always preserve their own peculiar qualities of colour and enamel, and, as it were, the outward appearance which is proper to the productions of each manufacture ; whilst with the works of secon- dary manufactories the difference between them is so very slight, and the copies are generally so commonplace, that to endeavour to ascribe a determinate origin to productions which, for the greater part, are of no real interest, would simply be courting errors. Moustiers . — The small town of Moustiers, situated in the De- partement des Basses- A ipes, and hidden in the midst of mountains, was formerly the most important faience-making town in France after Nevers and Rouen. Its numerous and large manufactories supplied the markets of southern France, and its influence told 72 FRENCH POTTERY. not only on a number of second-rate manufactories, but even as far as Spain. The Moustiers faience, remarkable on account of the excep- tional purity of its beautiful milky-white enamel, and of the delicacy and finish of its ornamentation, was in great renown ; and several writers, especially in the latter end of the last century, speak of it in eulogistic and even enthusiastic terms. We quote the following from the Abbe Delaporte’s ‘‘ Voyageur frangais:’^ “ There is in the small town of Moustiers a faience manufactory, whose ware is said to be the most beautiful and finest in the kingdom.” From an artistic point of view the faience of Rouen is evidently superior to that of Moustiers ; its ornamentation is more varied and effective, and conceived in a more decorative style, whilst the polychrome painting is more vivid and powerful ; but the Moustiers ware is so perfect in workmanship, so delicately decorated, the colouring harmonises so perfectly with the purity and softness of the enamel, and its appearance is so light, and one might almost say graceful, that at the time when the Abbe Delaporte was writing, the faience of Moustiers might truly be described as “ the most beautiful and finest in the kingdom.” The first manufactory of Moustiers was that started towards the end of the eighteenth century by Pierre Clerissy or Clericy, who belonged to a well-known family of potters ; this factory was, in the year 1728, made over to his nephew, who was also named Pierre Clerissy. Having been ennobled by Louis XV. in 1743, and made a magistrate of the Parlement of Provence, Pierre Clerissy entered into partnership with Joseph Foulque, a clever decorative artist, to whom he soon sold his manufactory, where no less than twenty-two painters were employed, and which remained the first and most important establishment of its kind in Moustiers and the surrounding localities. The faience objects, mostly large dishes, decorated with sub- jects copied from the numerous works of Antonio Tempesta, a celebrated Florentine engraver of the seventeenth century, were MO US TIERS. 73 probably made in Clerissy’s workshops ; these subjects represent- ing battles or hunting scenes, are executed in camdieu of a beau- tiful intense blue with great spirit and fair talent. (Nos. 472-70, 456-70, 460-70, Fig. 32.) FICx. 32. PLATEAU WITH STAG HUNT, MOUSTIERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 472 — 187O. The borders, also in blue camdieu^ were originally composed of juxtaposited rosettes imitated from the lambrequins of Rouen, or of palmettes copied from the Italian friezes of that time. Later on these borders were replaced by an ornamentation 74 FRENCH POTTERY. consisting of light designs a dentelles or in the style of lace, and which were scarcely in harmony with the importance of the central subject. The latter in its turn was abandoned, and an exclusively ornamental decoration substituted which was borrowed from the compositions of Eerain or Boulle, and more often of Bernard Toro, a very talented sculptor, who left behind him some extremely remarkable designs, which are unfortunately too little known. This decoration consisted of graceful interlacings en- I'lG. 33. TRAY, MOUSTIERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 332— 1872. closing monstrous figures, birds, and monkeys; or mythological figures, nymphs, satyrs, together with canopies, termini, or caryatids, very tastefully and ingeniously disposed (Nos. 457-7° and 458-70). These ornaments were mostly in blue camdieu ; but there are also a few rare specimens painted in various colours (Fig- 33)- The polychrome decoration was not employed until the return from Spain of a few Moustiers workmen, who had been summoned MOUSTIERS. 75 to Alcora by the Count d’ Aranda, in order to introduce in the manufactory he had established in that town the manufacturing processes peculiar to them. The best known of these men is Olery, who started at Moustiers an important manufactory, the numerous productions of which are marked with an O crossed by an L, and followed by a letter or sign used as a reference or indicating the decorator’s name (Nos. 462-70, 332-72). The centre of most of the faience objects with a polychrome decoration is occupied by a mythological subject very poorly drawn generally ; but almost invariably surrounded with wreaths of flowers and small medallions, softly and harmoniously painted, and of the most charming effect. The design is delicately out- lined in blue, and the predominating colour is an orange yellow blended with a light green peculiar to Moustiers (Figs. 34 and 35). This style of decoration was adopted simultaneously in France and in Spain, and the productions of the two manufactories are so much alike that it is difflcult, at the first glance, to distinguish one from another. In the Spanish faience, however, the orange yellow is lighter, manganese violet is often substituted for blue, and the plates with festooned borders are of a decidedly pentagonal shape, whilst that of the Moustiers plates is generally hexagonal or octagonal. We must also mention as being very characteristic the “ grotesque ” decoration, composed of caricatures and ridiculous figures disposed at random or detached, and usually executed in yellow and green cai 7 idieu (No. 389-69), or green mixed with black or manganese. Some of these grotesques are copied from the works of Callot, whilst others (and they are the most 76 FRENCH POTTERY. numerous) are mediocre compositions due to the fanciful imagina- tion and talent of local painters. They are generally carefully executed, and even more so than is warranted by a kind of deco- ration which is lacking in taste, composition, and arrangement. The painters of Moustiers, being so far from the great FIG. 34. PLATE, MOUSTIERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 461 — 1870. industrial cities, felt but slightly the artistic influence of Paris ; their taste remained unchanged, and as they had not to submit to the exigencies of fashion, the decoration of their faience was but little varied. They even seldom had to copy the productions of the other faience-makers. A few copies of the Rouen MOUSTIERS. 77 decorative patterns were nevertheless made at Moustiers ; but these copies are easily distinguishable by their enamel, their blue colour, and the somewhat stinted execution. These pieces are the only ones manufactured at Moustiers in which red is em- ployed ; but the Moustiers red is much inferior to that the secret of which seems to have belonged only to the old Norman city. In the emblazoned pieces, the colours are carefully indicated FIG. 35. barber’s basin, MOUSTIERS WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 462 — 1870. by means of the conventional lines used by heraldists ; in some of them the arms were placed on the border and connected with the border decoration; in others they were in the centre of the piece, and surrounded with canopies, “ supporters,"* or rich ornaments skilfully disposed. Nearly all the secondary faience manufactories in the south of France copied the faience of Moustiers, but with less delicacy of 78 FRENCH POTTERY. execution ; such was the case with the potteries of Varages, Taverne, and even Marseilles, which will be mentioned hereafter. Other manufactories have only adopted the style of decoration, and so modified it as to make it almost original, as had been the case with the faience of Rouen. Among the latter must be particularly mentioned the manufactory of Clermont-Ferrand \ a few pieces made at that place are known which, for whiteness of enamel and delicacy of decoration, are equal to the Moustiers ware. Also a few potteries in the south-western provinces, and notably in Quercy, whose productions, notwithstanding a rather coarse paste, are decorated with light designs in slaty blue, and denote true artistic feeling. The Moustiers style of decoration was also imitated by several manufactories of Savoy, and particularly by that of La P'oret, whose productions deserve to be known, although they are almost forgotten. Some faience pieces made at La Foret are decorated with subject figures in the style of Moustiers, and borders quite as delicately executed (No. 459-70 in the Museum). Sirasburg . — In the preceding pages we have passed in review the three great manufactories of French faience, and mentioned the secondary manufactories which imitated or derived from them. Each of these great manufacturing centres originated a style of decoration peculiar to itself, and so characteristic that, in the ceramist’s language, it is sufficient to mention the style of Nevers, of Rouen, or of Moustiers, in order to specify a whole and definite system of decoration. There is a fourth manufacturing centre which had its origin at Strasburg. But whilst the three great manufactories we have described used to decorate their ware an grand fen, and on unbaked enamel — that is to say, on a pulverulent surface, which absorbed the colours the very instant they were laid on, and precluded the possibility of retouching them, and with a necessarily limited number of colours — the manufactory of Strasburg, imitating the decorative processes of the German manufacturers, offered to STRASBURG. 79 artists a much richer palette, together with easier and more varied means of execution. The practice of laying the colours on “ baked ” enamel — that is, on enamel already melted by firing, and consequently on a solid and resisting surface — admitted of greater delicacy in the paintings ; but from a purely artistic point of view the faience decorated by this process is inferior to that of an earlier date, for in the last-mentioned ware, when the enamel was being fused under the action of the fire, the colours incorporated with it and partook of its lustre, brilliancy, and depth. Indeed, the very defects resulting from the accidents which were of so common occurrence during the firing some- times contributed an additional charm to the faience by intro- ducing unexpected effects of light and shade, and thus relieving the decoration from the monotony inherent to an over-careful and correct and, for this reason, rather cold execution. The manufactory of Strasburg, founded in 1709 by Charles Hannong, originally turned out nothing but pipes and large stoves, like those of Nuremberg, and the use of which had become general in Switzerland and Alsace ; but this was not sufficient for a man so active as Hannong, who, towards the year 1721, entered into partnership with a German named Wackenfeld. The latter, notwithstanding the strict regulations, and the severe punishments which he was incurring, had left the manufactory of Meissen in order to carry abroad and practise for his own benefit the secrets he had learnt there for the making of hard porcelain, then recently discovered, and which it was everywhere sought to imitate. He had first settled at Strasburg ; but either through want of funds or bad manage- ment his venture was unsuccessful, and he accepted the offers made to him by Hannong. The stove manufactory was then transformed into a porcelain and faience-making establishment, and success having crowned their endeavours, the two partners were soon obliged to start another factory at Haguenau, a small town situated within 28 kilometres (17-^ miles) of Strasburg. In 8o FRENCH POTTERY. 1732, Hannong made over his two establishments to his sons, who in the first instance were partners ; but the younger, Paul Hannong, being more intelligent and active than his brother, the partnership was dissolved, and he became the only proprietor of the manufactory of Strasburg. In the year 1750, the manufacture of porcelain had taken so much extension at Strasburg that the owners of the privileged manufactory of Vincennes* became alarmed; they easily obtained from the King a decree forbidding Paul Hannong to continue the manufacture of porcelain, and ordering him to destroy his porce- lain kilns within a fortnight. The Marshal de Noailles interested himself on behalf of Hannong, and applied to the King, but in vain. The decree was carried out, and the unfortunate potter was compelled to leave his native town and to transfer part ot his business to Frankenthal, in the Palatinate. But his son, Pierre Hannong, remained at Strasburg, where he continued the manufacture of faience, for the decoration of which his father had employed the processes used for decorating porcelain, and thus originated an almost new ware, which differed from porcelain by its texture and toughness, but had neverthe- less the same appearance, owing to the delicacy of the decoration, the richness and variety of the colouring, and the brilliancy of the gold with which it was occasionally heightened. In con- sequence the ferme royale put a much heavier tax on that faience th^n on other similar wares, and applied to it the tariff used for foreign goods. Joseph Hannong, to whom Pierre had made over the manufactory, attempted to resist that new pretension. He drew up several 7 nemoires or memoranda, setting forth that the exorbitant duties imposed upon the articles of his manufacture were often in excess of their sale price, and obtained the assist- ance of the Princes de Rohan, who convinced the King and his ministers of the injustice of the pretensions of ferme royale \ * This establishment became a royal manufactory three years later, and was, in 1756, transferred to Sevres. STRASBURG. 8i but the matter was so long delayed that, five years later, in 1779, it was still pendent. In the meantime his business and fabrica- tion had been stopped, and he had got into financial difficulties ; he was mercilessly prosecuted ; and the unfortunate man, after having been completely ruined, was, like his father, forced to leave the country, and fled to Munich, where he soon after died in poverty. After his departure attempts were made to continue and revive his business, but without success, and a few years later the manufactory of Strasburg had ceased to exist. That of Haguenau was gradually transformed, and the manufacture of faience stoves was resumed, to which was added the making of objects of common use in plain “ fine faience ” — that is to say, without any decoration. It is still in existence, having never since its foundation ceased to produce faience ; but it has wholly lost that artistic character imparted to it by the Hannongs. The faience of Strasburg, which was the object of a con- siderable trade, especially in the early part of the second half of the eighteenth centur}’, is distinguishable by the beauty and light- ness of its fine milky-white enamel, its elegant shapes, and particularly by its fresh and vivid colouring. The decoration of the table services and articles of domestic use almost exclusively consists of bouquets of flowers, or detached flowers — roses, peonies, tulips, carnations, and myosotis predominating. All these brilliantly-toned flowers are executed with great dex- terity, and outlined in black, and sometimes fine black hatchings are employed, especially for the leaves, which, under the trans- parent glaze, impart to the modelling a soft and velvety appearance. During the last period of manufacture, the table services were also decorated with Chinese figures, holding long pipes or engaged in line-fishing ; this style of decoration, which appears to have met with great success and is frequently seen, was imitated G 82 FRENCH POTTERY. in a number of manufactories, and notably at Marseilles and Sinceny, during the last years of the manufactory of which we have spoken, and more particularly at Orleans. It is rather difficult to determine with certainty the origin of the various articles of this kind, although a certain difference in the colouring of the pieces is distinguishable. But the manufactory of the Hannongs calls for a special mention on account of the decorative faience pieces it produced, and which bear testimony to the ingenuity and skill of its sculptors and modellers, as well as to the talent of its painters, whilst they have placed it amongst the best French manufactories. It is sufficient to examine the fine clock in the Museum (No. 465-70) surmounted by a figure of Time, and bearing two busts, one on each side, to fully realise the remarkable perfection attained at Strasburg in the manufacture of faience. We must also mention the beautiful fountain representing Amphitrite on a shell drawn by a dolphin (No. 466-70), and another one formed of three parts, and surmounted by a swan STRASBURG. 83 FIG. 37. CLOCK CASE, STRASBURG WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM,, NO. 465—1870. G 2 84 FRENCH POTTER V. FIG. 38. FOUNTAIN, STRASBURG WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 466 — 1870. (No. 467-70). These pieces, and two boat-shaped butter-dishes, with covers (No. 468-70), decorated in polychrome colours, bear the mark of Paul Hannong. STRASBURG. 85 Faience articles with open-work borders appear to have been made at Strasburg for the first time in France. This lattice-work, the making of which was attended with considerable difficulties, has since been produced very easily by the makers of fine faience, especially in England. Most of the faience manufactured at Strasburg is marked with the monograms of the Hannongs, and with numbers which, in all probability, referred to the different patterns, and were used to facilitate the matching of pieces. (Joseph Hannong.) Like the three great manufactories whose history we have attempted to sketch in the preceding pages, that of Strasburg had its followers, and the style of decoration it had originated was rapidly copied everywhere, and chiefly in the eastern part of France. As was the case with Rouen, the potteries founded to compete with that of the Hannongs first produced servile copies of their ware ; but under the direction of intelligent men, and of skilful artists, they also contrived to elaborate a particular style of their own, whilst preserving the same manufacturing and decorating processes. The oldest, most important, and best known of these was the manufactory of Niederwiller, a small village in the arrondisse- ment of Saarburg. This establishment founded, towards the year 1742, by Jean Louis de Beyerle, one of the King’s counsellors and director of the Strasburg mint, who had enticed away several of Paul Hannong’s best workmen, rapidly took considerable exten- sion. Not only was the faience well made ; but it was also admir- ably decorated under the artistic supervision of Madame de Beyerlcj a woman of exquisite taste, who is often spoken of in the 86 FRENCH POTTERY, memoires of that time, and who herself supplied the designs for the shapes and ornaments, whilst she often painted the pieces which were intended for her own use or to be given away as pre- sents, with as much talent as the decorators that her husband had induced to come over from Saxony at great expense. The two beautiful shell-shaped compote dishes (No. 482-70) decorated with polychrome flowers admirably executed, belong to FIG, 39. TRAY, NIEDERWILLER WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 481 — 1870. this first period. These two pieces bear the mark of Baron de Beyerle — a B and an N interlaced (Beyerle, Niederwiller). Towards the year 1774 the manufactory of Niederwiller passed into the hands of General Count de Custine, who appointed as director Frangois Lanfrey, one of the best and most skilful faience- makers of his time. Under his able management the fabrication gained considerable importance ; and the ornaments were varied. STRASBURG. 87 whilst, at the same time, preserving the delicacy and elegance of to copy. A style of decoration which seems to have had great success, and of which numerous examples are to be found, was obtained in painting the whole surface to be decorated in imitation of veined pine-wood, upon which was figured an engraving fixed on the wood by a pin, and usually representing a landscape in pink camaieu. In order to make the illusion more complete, one angle of the figured engraving is sometimes turned in, and pro- jects a shadow on the wood. There are in the Museum a plateau or salver and two vases thus decorated (Nos. 41 1 and 483-70); the vases bear the mark of Count de Custine. This mark, which is also found on porcelain, is sometimes, though very seldom (especially on faience), surmounted with a coronet. As a type of the manufacture of that time we shall mention the service ordered to be made for his own use by Count de Custine, and some examples of which are not unfrequently to be found ; the border is latticed, and in the centre of each piece is the monogram of the count, surmounted by a band with his motto : Fais ce que tic dots, arrive ce qui pourraA From 1759 there was at the manufactory of Niederwiller a very talented sculptor, Charles Sauvage, generally called Lemire, to whom the success of the manufactory was, in a great measure, due; he was, probably, the author of the fine statuette of Louis XV. in Roman dress (No. 476-70), the pedestal of which is very tastefully decorated in rich polychrome colours. Amongst the most important manufactories in the east of France must be mentioned those of Luneville and of St. Clement, which belonged to the same owner, and which for a long time the paintings of the Dresden china they were particularly intended 88 FRENCH POTTERY. were alike both in their prosperity and their decay. The manu- factory of Limeville, founded towards 1731 at the end of the reign of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, by Jacques Chambrette, soon grew very extensive, and its productions were so much in favour that, in order to execute the orders which came in from all quarters, Chambrette was obliged to start two fresh manufactories : one at Limeville, and the other at St. Clement, a small village distant about 10 kilometres (6 miles). He died in 1758, and left his prosperous establishments to his son and his son-in-law, Charles Loyal, to whom King Stanislas Leczinski confirmed the privileges originally granted to their father, and also gave to the pottery of Limeville the title of ''’‘Manufacture royalef which it retained until the abolition of the monarchy of Lorraine in 1772. At that time the prosperity of the three potteries was declining ; and so rapidly, that Chambrette became bankrupt. His brother- in-law then assumed the management of the three manufactories ; but his means were soon exhausted, and he was compelled to sell the two Luneville establishments to Sebastien Keller, to whose direct descendants they now belong. At St. Clement he had been obliged to take as his partners, or at least to give an interest in the concern to, Nique and the sculptor Cyffle, to whom we will refer hereafter, and who is the author of most of those charming statuettes so justly admired now, and to which the artistic renown of the potteries of Lorraine is partly due. But this partnership was of short duration, and Loyal had soon to give up the manufactory to his creditors. Companies were formed at different times with a view to keep going this once prosperous faience manufactory, and it was at last revived in 1824, when it fell into the hands of an active and intelligent director, M. Germain Thomas, whose sons are now successfully managing it. Another manufactory of Lorraine of some importance, and which successfully weathered the commercial crisis of the latter STRASBUI^G. 89 end of the eighteenth century, was that of Bellevue, near Toul, started in 1758 by Lefran^ois. In the year 1771 it passed into the hands of two partners, Bayard and Boyer, who obtained the authorisation to style it “ ManiLfactw'e royale de BellevueP Its present director is M. Aubr}^, who has revived with great intelli- gence and success the old manufacturing and decorating pro- cesses. These three manufactories, whose history we have briefly sketched, have produced a large quantity of stanniferous-enamelled faience of elegant and varied shapes, decorated in colours after the style and process of Strasburg, or simply in blue or in gold. The polychrome paintings representing birds (No. 479-70) or flowers were finely executed. The large faience pieces glazed with stanniferous enamel, and representing lions or fierce-looking dogs, were also made at Lun^ville ; it became the fashion to place two of these, facing each other, on the doorsteps or in the entrance-halls of houses, and hence the French proverb came : ‘‘ Se regarder comme des chiens de faience^'' (to stare at one another like crockery dogs). But the chief productions of Luneville were the white clay enamelled and painted faience (No. 480-70), or simply “biscuit ” articles known under the name of terres de Luneville R'' the charming statuettes for which the talented artist Paul Cyffle supplied the models were thus manufactured. Cyffle was born at Bruges on the 6th of January, 1724, and was barely seventeen when he came to Paris to learn from his uncle (who, like his father, was a goldsmith) the art of working metals. After having spent five years in Paris, he was, towards the end of the year 1746, summoned to Luneville, where he was entrusted with several important works by Guibal, sculptor to King Stanislas. But his original and naive talent was ill at ease when dealing with large allegorical figures or historical bas- reliefs, and he soon abandoned them for small faience statuettes. Utterly uneducated, lacking useful knowledge, and unfortunately 90 FRENCH POTTERY, rather inclined, especially in his youth, to frequent the wine-shops, he was at his best when dealing with “familiar” subjects, and reproducing popular scenes and types, the real and picturesque side of which he was unequalled for observing, and rendering in the happiest and most humorous mood. His knowledge of modelling, truthfulness, skill, and delicacy of touch were essen- tially typical and personal, and imparted value even to his least important works. M. Morey, his biographer, relates how, in a visit he paid to Ingres when the latter was director of the Academie de France at Rome, he was surprised to find on a piece of furniture, under an admirable copy of a painting by Raphael, a few statuettes which he at once recognised as the work of Cyffle. As he was expressing his astonishment to the 'celebrated painter, and was going to take up one of the statuettes to examine it, “ Don’t touch it ! ” exclaimed Ingres ; “ this statuette is as beautiful of its kind as the work above it ; this painting and these statuettes I will never part from ! ” “ Notwithstanding his well-known enthusiasm,” adds M. Morey, “ such eulogy coming from so great a master dispenses us from further comment on the works of Cyffle.” His profligate and wild life prevented him from acquiring the wealth or even the competency that his talent seemed to warrant, and after having been successively a sculptor whose works were valued and sought for, the director, and even the owner of several manufactories, he was obliged to leave France, and died at Bruges, in 1806, in the greatest obscurity and misery. The models of Cyffle were reproduced by the three manu- factories of Luneville, St. Clement, and Bellevue. The produc- tions of the factory of Luneville are the most esteemed, and justly so, since the greater part of Cyffle’s models were made for that establishment ; whilst the other potteries, particularly that of Bellevue, had probably nothing but worn-out moulds or moulds made from casts of the originals. Besides, the Luneville statuettes STRASBURG, 91 alone are sometimes marked with a stamp applied on the wet clay, and bear in relief the words : CYFFLE A LUNEVILLE. Amongst the most remarkable works of Cyffle we may mention Le Savetier sifflant son sansonnet, La Ravaudeuse de bas dans son tonneau^ Le Savoyard Ra 7 no 7 ieur^ La Savoyarde jouant de la vielle^ La jiiaiie tenant sa maiinote^ Le Jardinier et La Jardlnihe (Nos. 477 and 478-70), etc. etc. We find, on referring to a price-list of that time, that the enamelled and painted statuettes were of the same price as the “ biscuit ” ones. The Luneville statuettes are always white, whether enamelled or “ biscuit.” A specialty of the manufactory of Bellevue was the making of the large painted terra-cotta figures which were frequently seen in France in the gardens of petits remitters. The most favourite were the Jardinier appuye siir sa beche, the Jardinih'e aya 7 it casse so?i pot de fleurs (the two last-mentioned figures were reproductions, almost life-size, of the charming statuettes in the Museum (Nos. 477 and 478-70), some Savoyards^ and particularly the Abbe assis et lisani soil breviaire. The price of these large terra-cotta statues was moderate enough (12 livres, about 9^. (i\d.)J and there were few gardens in the provinces where these ornaments were wanting. There was, besides, at Nancy, a manufactory founded in the year 1774 by Nicolas Belong, but whose productions are not clearly characterised; the only thing we know is that the cele- brated sculptor Clodion (born at Nancy 1745, died 1814) executed for that pottery most of the charming and graceful statuettes which, to amateurs, are now worth their weight in gold. We must also mention, amongst the potteries of Lorraine, that of Islettes, near Verdun (Meuse), started in 1737, and which survived until 1830. The faience of Islettes, of a very fair quality, was decorated in a peculiar manner (more especially in the early * The French livre in use from 1667 to the introduction of the present monetary system, established by the law of the i8th of Germinal, An. III. (8th March, 1795), was worth o '98765 franc, or a little over ()\d. 92 FRENCH POTTERY, part of this century) with military subjects or familiar scenes copied from popular engravings, painted in lively and brilliant colours, and outlined in black. Finally, we have to record in the eastern provinces of France the existence of the manufactory of Aprey (Haute-Marne), estab- lished towards 1750. This pottery was not very important, but the owners had the good fortune to secure the services of a painter of flowers and birds of the greatest ability named Jarry. All the pieces made at Aprey were of elegant shapes copied from the models of goldsmiths, with rocaille and festooned borders, and of very good workmanship ; many of them are decorated with birds richly and brilliantly painted ; others are ornamented with flowers only. Such are the two plates in the Museum (Nos. 484 and 485-70), one of which bears the mark of Aprey, an A and a P, with a letter either indicating the name of the decorator or used as a reference : This mark is not found on all the articles manufactured at Aprey, and owing to some unaccountable peculiarity the most carefully finished pieces are not marked. Besides the manufactories we have just mentioned, a great number of French potteries were adopting the process of deco- ration originated at Strasburg — some, like Levavasseur’s at Rouen, Chambon’s at Sinceny, Savy’s and others at Marseilles, by modifying their manufacture ; whilst others, that of Sceaux for instance, were started purposely to manufacture what was then called the geni-e porcelaine^^^ or imitation porcelain. There were, at Marseilles, several manufactories whose pro- ductions — especially the pieces decorated on baked enamel — were remarkable on account of the fineness of the paste, which resembles that of Moustiers, and of the beauty of the workman- STRASBURG. 93 ship, as well as for the elegance and beauty of the shapes and the taste displayed in the ornamentation. One of the most important was certainly the manufactory of Savy, visited in 1777 by Monsieur, Comte de Provence, brother of King Louis XVI., who gave the clever manufacturer the authorisation to style his establishment '‘^Manufacture de Monsieur, Frere du RoyT It is, no doubt, in virtue of this privilege that Savy marked his faience with a fleur-de-lis, as testified by the beautiful dish with a festooned border, and decorated with bouquets in polychrome colours (No. 474-70), bearing the annexed mark : The magnificent soup-tureens on plateaux, with legs and handles carved like goldsmiths’ work, and covers ornamented with delicately-modelled clusters of fruit by way of a knob, were mostly made at Savy’s establishment ; there is in the Museum one of these remarkable pieces (No. 473-70) decorated with admirably painted bouquets, and heightened with gold ; the tureen and plateau are marked •c> Savy employed in the decoration of his faience a copper-green of peculiar brilliancy of which he alone seems to have had the secret, although a very similar pigment is to be found on a few pieces of Savona faience made by an Italian named Jacques Borelly, who lived for a long time at Marseilles. Many of Savy’s pieces are broadly decorated with flowers outlined and shaded in black, and painted over with this beautiful iridescent green, which is not to be found in the productions of other manufactories. 94 FRENCH POTTERY, There were, besides Savoy’s establishment, several important faience manufactories at Marseilles at the end of the last century, one of them being that of Joseph Robert, who marked his faience with his initials. and sometimes with his name in full ; another was that of the widow Perrin, whose mark was. The Marseilles faience, of good workmanship, and made of a light and resonant paste covered with a smooth and pure enamel, was delicately decorated with flowers, fish, shells, sea-plants, and insects, irregularly disposed, but nearly always harmoniously coloured, and very skilfully painted. The principal design was surrounded with small detached ornaments placed at random, and irrespective of the shape. This irregular style of decoration, which is to be found on the faience of many other manufactories, gave to the artist the means of concealing the small blisters, defects, and black spots which are often to be seen even in the purest enamel; and these detached flowers, flies, or insects, which have no connection with the ensemble of the decoration, are scarcely, if ever, placed except on one of those defects. Pieces of Marseilles faience are occasionally, but very seldom, found, which are admirably decorated with small medallions enclosed in a rich border heightened with gold, and representing sea-pieces painted in pink camaieu, apparently copied from the paintings of Joseph Vernet; but they are exceptional pieces such as many manu- factories have produced, and cannot be considered as typical of any fabrication. But of all the faience manufactories which at that time were STRASBURG. 95 endeavouring to imitate the style of decoration and shapes of porcelain, that of Sceaux, near Paris, has certainly produced the most remarkable works, and has attained an incontestable degree of perfection in the ornamentation of its faience. It is rather difficult to characterise the early productions of this manufactory, which was originally under the patronage of the Duchesse du Maine, and later, under that of the Due de Penthievre, Grand Admiral of France ; besides, it was only from the time when it was under the direction of Chapelle, dhnon- strateur en Chi?nie^ and member of the Academie Royale des Sciences, and particularly of Richard Glot — a skilful sculptor of ornaments — that it became really important. It was chiefly under the direction of the latter that the admirable fine-paste faience was made, which was ornamented with skilfully combined relievos and delicately-carved mouldings, and gracefully decorated with figures, flowers, birds, and arabesques painted in camdieu or in bright and harmonious colours, and generally heightened with gold. In the year 1794, Glot, who was undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and most important manufacturers of his time, and who had been chosen by the other manufacturers to bring under the notice of the National Assembly their grievances against the treaty of commerce concluded with England a few years previously, and which had struck a fatal blow at the French ceramic industry, sold the manufactory of Sceaux to Antoine Cabaret. Cabaret, however, was not able to maintain the artistic character which his predecessor had given to the manu- facture, and he soon afterwards confined himself to the making of plain faience objects for domestic purposes. The two jardinieres decorated with medallions painted in camdieu^ and representing amorini (Nos. 46, 47-70), may be mentioned as specimens of the manufacture of Sceaux, although they do not bear the usual mark of that establishment, which was composed of the letters S.P. (Sceaux-Penthievre), either 96 FRENCH POTTERY, alone or accompanied by the “ anchor ’’ of the Grand Admiral of France. During the last years of the fabrication, the latter mark was stencilled, and the word Sceaiix was substituted for the initials. Besides the four great faience manufacturing centres, Nevers, Rouen, Moustiers, Strasburg, and the secondary manufactories directly or indirectly derived from them, and to which we have referred in the preceding pages, there were in France several manufactories which contrived to originate a particular style unlike anything manufactured in the other potteries. They, however, had but little importance from an industrial stand- point, and their artistic merit was not sufficient to give rise to a “ school.” The only manufactories of this kind which deserve a passing notice are those of Rennes, Bordeaux, Montpellier, St. Amand-les-Eaux, Orleans, and Apt. Rennes, where manufactories of glazed pottery of some renown were established as early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, also had, at a very early date, faience manufactories ; but little is known of them, and, with the exception of funereal plaques, numerous fragments of which are to be found in the cemeteries of the town and its environs, there is no faience that can with certainty be attributed to them. It is probable that, like all secondary manufactories in Normandy and Brittany, they confined themselves to imitaie more or less clumsily the style of decoration of Rouen. It was only during the second half of the eighteenth century that the manufactories of Rennes acquired a certain importance, and produced faience worthy of the connoisseur’s attention. In the year 1748, an Italian, Jean Forasassi, commonly called Barbarino, and who came from Florence, was established at STRASBURG, 97 Rennes, and to him may doubtless be attributed the making of a large number of statuettes of the Virgin, of St. Yves, and of other saints which are frequently seen at Rennes and in all Brittany, and which have a distinctly Italian character. But this first period of careful manufacture did not last, and as was for- merly the case at Nevers, these statuettes, which, without being remarkable works, yet denote a certain skill and a tolerable know- ledge of the plastic art, were soon replaced by rude sketches, which perhaps satisfied the naive and earnest faith of the old Bretons*, but certainly belong to the lowest class of French ceramic productions. There was also in the “ Rue Hue ” a somewhat important manufactory, the director of which was a tolerably clever faience- maker named Bourgouin, whose signature is to be found on a great number of well-manufactured pieces, the shapes of which, ornamented with rocaille relievos, appear to have been made from casts of goldsmiths’ works. They are covered with a white and very pure enamel ; unfortunately the decoration, though carefully executed, has a monotonous appearance, due to the indiscriminate use by the painters of Rennes of manganese violet and of a green pigment darkened with black. The manufactory of Bordeaux, founded in 1714 by Hustin, first copied the style of Rouen ; but it is entitled to a special mention as having produced a large number of vegetable or pie- dishes {toiirtieres) in the shape of a bird, generally a turkey or a duck, the upper part being movable and used as a cover. These curious pieces, modelled with great truthfulness, are very often decorated in colours, the predominant hues being black and man- ganese. A large quantity of similar dishes were also made in the north, and particularly at Brussels. * Those statuettes were placed in small niches hollowed out in the walls, or simply fixed on the walls of the houses which they were supposed to protect against lightning. A great number of them are even now to be seen in Brittany and Vendee. H 98 FRENCH POTTERY. In the early part of the eighteenth century several faience manufactories were established at Montpellier ; but the most important pottery in that town was founded in 1750 by a Marseilles man named Andre Philip. Philip chiefly produced imitations of Moustiers faience, and we should not mention his establishment were it not for the original style of decoration originated there, and consisting of a plain yellow ground upon which spaces FIG. 40. ICE PAIL, ST. AMAND POTTERY, WITH BLUE AND WHITE DECORATION ON WHITE GROUND. reserved in white are ornamented with polychrome bouquets, in which manganese violet is the predominating colour. The manufactory of St. Amand-les-Eaux was one of the most important in the north of France. Like all secondary potteries, it copied the decorations of other establishments, and chiefly those of Rouen and Strasburgj but it also originated a special and particular style of decoration. We refer to the STRASBUJ^G. 99 delicate borders or designs elegantly outlined on a whitey-brown or blue enamel ground with pure white or blanc de rehaut^ after the style of decoration used for Italian maiolica, and known under the name of bianco sopra bia 7 ico. Detached flowers or bouquets painted under the glaze, or even before being fired in the muffle-kiln, completed this artistic and effective decoration. The director of the manufactory of St. Amand-les~Eaux was a skilful faience-maker named Pierre Fauquez, who marked his productions with the following monogram, in which the initial letters of his name are entwined : At a later date the fine faience made at St. Amand was marked with the above monogram somewhat modified, and in which the initials are better seen. In the same region was the manufactory of St.-Omer, which produced a great number of figure-shaped pieces in the style of those we have indicated when speaking of Bordeaux, and also vegetable-dishes and soup-tureens in the shape of vegetables ; the piece. No. 774-65, in the shape of a cauliflower, may be given as an example of the faience of St.-Omer; and the Musee de Cluny, in Paris, possesses a large and beautiful soup-tureen representing an enormous cabbage, marked in full, A Saint- Omer^ i 759 * There was also the manufactory of Desvres, to which are attributed a large number of jugs called Jacquelines^ representing H 2 lOO FRENCH POTTERY. a seated female figure, of indilTerent workmanship, and whose dress was decorated with coarsely-painted flowers. These jugs, of a rather odd shape, may be compared to the jolly ‘‘ Toby fill-pots ” of Staffordshire ware. FIG. 41. JUG AND COVER, APT WARE. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 378—1869. A few French manufactories also produced a kind of faience, or rather pottery, which must not be passed over, and which was intended to imitate the jaspered and mottled Wedgwood ware ; STRASBURG. lOI as, for instance, the manufactory of Orleans, where painted faience in the style of Strasburg was also made, and those of Gerardmer in the Vosges, and notably of Apt, near Avignon. The beautiful pot with cover (No. 378-69), in imitation of marble, veined in brown and yellow, and whose handle is ornamented with finely-modelled flowers in relief, was made at Apt. This piece bears the impressed mark of the widow Arnoux, under whose direction the manufactory was in the year 1802. In the preceding chapters we have endeavoured to condense the chief points in the history of the manufacture of French faience from its origin until the commencement of this century. Although inferior, from an artistic point of view, to the beautiful maiolica of the Renaissance, it is nevertheless entitled to an important chapter in the general history of ceramic industry. The faience of Rouen in particular is distinguished by boldness and freedom of execution, brilliancy of colouring and originality ot decoration ; if it does not show the fine and delicate modelling of Italian faience (and this is due chiefly to the difference in the processes employed) it is none the less remarkable, and some pieces may justly be considered as true works of art. Even the defects discernible in the execution of the pieces sometimes give, when they are not too prominent, an additional charm to the decoration which a too severe and cold treatment would deprive of its original and extemporaneous qualities. This is precisely the chief cause of the inferiority of the copies of old faience so much in fashion at the present time, and the decoration of which, reproduced by stencilling, is hopelessly monotonous. Those heavy strokes of the brush, and unintentional impasto, which produced such quaint effects of light and shade, and seemed to give life to the decoration, are now wanting. Artists 102 FRENCH POTTERY, and true connoisseurs will, we are convinced, always prefer the unpretending faience, however coarse it may appear at first, to the most beautiful and regularly-shaped piece made in the modern stencilling fashion, for the one is as cheerful and plea- sant to the eye under its brilliant enamel coating as the other seems cold and dull in spite of the apparent superiority in its manufacture. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS. FRENCH POTTERY. Division II.— PORCELAIN. 9 o EL*; ■ CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH PORCELAIN — SOFT PORCELAIN. Rouen — St, - Cloud — Chantilly^ etc. French porcelain,"^ which occupies, and deservedly so, such an important place in the general history of the ceramic art, is divided into two classes, “ soft porcelain ” and “ hard porcelain ; ’’ the former, of essentially French origin, is composed of various elements, whose mixture and preparation varied in the different manufactories, but whose constituent basis remained the same ; the latter, of Oriental origin, is made of a paste exclusively formed of kaolin^ that is to say, of the white clay, which is found in its natural state in the bosom of the earth, and which, like all various clays employed for ceramic purposes, undergoes several pre- * The French word porcelaine is derived from the shell called in French porcelame ( Cypr(xa porcellana, a pectinibranchiate gasferopod mollusk), which was used for making objects of art. “ This expression ( fails de pourceIaine)f says Mr. de Laborde, in his learned “Glossaire,” vol. ii. of the “ Notice des Emaux du Louvre,” “ with the exception of a few insignificant modified forms, remained unchanged until the sixteenth century. It then assumed a double meaning ; and, whilst retaining its old signification, was extended to imported vases and utensils of foreign origin having the same pearly whiteness {naade)^ namely, to the glazed pottery of China, which thus took a name warranted only by a similarity of tint and texture. It thus appears that porcelaijit (pottery), a word not derived from any Oriental language, was named from the mediaeval porcelame^ which was a kind of mother-of-pearl. This nacreous porcelahi was thus named after the porcelain shell.'” The opinion of Panciroli on the composition of porcellana, which was supposed to be made oi''*‘the shells of marine locusts f corroborates this etymology. 104 FRENCH POTTERY, liminary preparations. The first is, so to speak, artificial, the second natural. Chinese porcelain, imported into Europe as early as the twelfth century by the Venetians, whose commerce with the Levant was considerable, and later on by the Portuguese, was highly esteemed, and like everything coming from the East, “ the land of wonders,” was, during the Middle Ages, considered as an almost supernatural production, and supposed, even by the most educated men, to possess magic properties. This belief survived as late as the sixteenth century, and Gui Panciroli — a celebrated Italian jurisconsult and erudite writer, in his dis- sertation on the arts and inventions known to the ancients, the secret of which has been lost, entitled, “ Rerum memorabilium libri duo ” — said : “ Past generations had not seen porcellana, which is really a mass composed of plaster, eggs, shells of ma7'ine locusts, and such-like; this being well kneaded and mixed together, is hidden in the ground by the head of the family, whose secret is known only to his children, and there it remains for eighty years without being brought to the light, after which his heirs remove it, and, finding it appropriate to some work, fashion it into those precious vases, so beautiful to the eye in shape and colour that architects cannot detect any defect in them ; these vases have such wonderful properties that if poiso7i he put i7ito the77i they ini77iediately burst asimder. He who has buried this matter never sees it again, but leaves it for his children, nephews, or heirs, as a rich treasure, on account of the benefit they derive from it, and much more valuable than gold.” The unsuccessful attempts repeatedly made in Europe to manufacture a similar kind of pottery may probably be ascribed to the wide-spread belief in supernatural events, and to those absurd fables on the composition and properties of oriental porcelain. So far were people from supposing that oriental porcelain was made with a natural material — a white clay of a particular nature, it is true, but which might possibly be found in SOFT PORCELAIN. 105 all countries as well as in China — that only alchemists tried to discover the secret, and strove hard to produce a similar material to that of which porcelain was composed. From the point of view of ceramic art, however, we can hardly regret it, for this belief, though it retarded the discovery of hard porcelain, was the cause and origin of the manufacture of the beautiful “ soft or “ French porcelain,” examples of which are now the pride of our museums and important private collections. When, in the seventeenth century, the Dutch, and particularly the celebrated East India Company, imported into Europe an immense quantity of Chinese and Japanese porcelain, more logical and correct ideas prevailed ; the supernatural properties of porcelain were no more believed in, but the notion was still entertained of a special kind of clay to be found only in the far East. And, even at a later date, when, towards the year 1709, chance made Boettger acquainted with the existence of a bed of kaolin near Meissen, the discovery was made the object of a mysterious legend, which was for a long time currently told in Germany. Manufactories of Rouen a 7 id St.- Cloud. — The researches carried on in France, however, were not fruitless, and, as early as 1690, we find the first mention of the manufacture of porcelain ; for we read in the “ Almanach des Adresses ” of Abraham du Pradel, published in that year, that “ Le Sieur de St. Etienne, master of the faience manufactory of Rouen, has found the secret of making porcelain objects in France.” But we presume that, although “ Le Sieur de St. Etienne ” — better known in the history of the ceramic art under the name of Louis Poterat, of whom we have already spoken when dealing with the faience of Rouen — had in 1673 applied for and obtained the privilege of establishing at St. Sever, one of the suburbs of Rouen, a manufactory where he intended to make “true Chinese porcelain, of which he had found the secret, as well as that of the Dutch faience,” he did not continue the manu- io6 FRENCH POTTERY, facture of it, either because he was unable to produce porcelain on sufficiently remunerative conditions to dispose of it easily and advantageously, or because, devoting himself exclusively to the making of the beautiful faience which has placed Rouen ahead of French industry, he elected to give the advantage of his discovery to one of his co-manufacturers. The pieces which can with certainty be attributed to the manufactory of Louis Poterat, are, indeed, very few in number ; we may, however, mention, as an example, the charming little toilet-jar FIG. 42. COVER, ROUEN PORCELAIN, WITH BLUE DECORATION. GASNAULT COLLECTION. mounted in silver, belonging to the ceramic museum of Sevres, and the decoration of which, in the purest style of Rouen, represents the coat-of-arms of Louise Asselin, the wife of a counsellor of the Parlemejit of Rouen; the Musee Adrien Dubouche at Limoges also possesses a few pieces whose Norman origin appears certain, some of which are marked, like the Sevres jar, with an A and a P, surmounted by a star, a mark which is generally attributed to Rouen. The “ Dictionnaire Universel du Commerce,” by Savary des SOFT PORCELAIN. 107 Bruslons, which contains such valuable information on the state of French industry at the close of the seventeenth century, says, under the head of “ Porcelain ” : “ Some fifteen or twenty years ago attempts were made in France to imitate Chinese porcelain ; the first attempts made at Rouen were successful enough, and have since been so happily improved upon at the manufactories of Passy and St.-Cloud, that French porcelain, in order to equal the Chinese, only requires to be imported from a distance of five or six thousand leagues, and to be thought foreign by a nation accustomed to prize only what it does not possess, and to scorn what it finds in its own country.” The above extract, and the similarity of the decoration of the first porcelain manufactured at St.-Cloud, and that of the faience of Rouen, confirm what we have said before on the origin of soft porcelain ; and we believe that, beyond any doubt, the honour of this discovery must be given to Louis Poterat, whose name, which is but little known, deserves to be recorded by the side of those of Palissy, Boettger, and Wedgwood. In any case, the first porcelain manufactory in Europe was very probably established at St.-Cloud,* and it rapidly became very important. As early as 1698, the learned English physician, Martiq, Lister, who accompanied the Duke of Portland, the envoy sent to France for the negotiation of the treaty of Ryswick, and who employed the six months he spent in Paris in inter- course with the men of learning, and in visiting the public libraries, museums, and private collections, referring to the manufactory of St.-Cloud in his interesting “ Account of Paris, or a Journey to Paris in the year 1698,” wrote: “I saw the potterie of St. Clou, with which I was marvellously well pleased, for I confess I could not distinguish betwixt the pots made there, and the finest China ware I ever saw. It * Voltaire, in his “ Siecle de Louis XIV.” says : “They began to make porcelain at St.-Cloud before it was manufactured in the other parts of Europe.” io8 FRENCH POTTERY. will, I know, be easily granted me that the paintings may be better designed and finisht (as indeed it was), because our men are far better masters in that art than the Chineses ; but the glazing came not the least behind them, not for the whiteness nor the smoothness of running without bubbles ; again, the inward substance and matter of the pots was to me the very same — hard and fine as marble, and the self-same grain on this side vitrification. Further, the transparency of the pots the very same.” We have but little information as to the time when the manufactory of St. -Cloud was established or as to its origin, and although Dr. Lister says that the proprietor of it was a chemist named Morin, we are of opinion that he was mistaken, and that Morin was only the manager of the manufactory, which really belonged to Chicanneau and his son. For we read in the Mercure Galant^ of October, 1700 : “I forgot to mention that on the third day of last month Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, whilst passing through St.-Cloud, drove to the door of Messieurs Chicanneau’s house, where they have, a few years since, estab- lished a manufactory of fine porcelain which undoubtedly has no equal in all Europe. That princess was much pleased to witness the throwing on the potter’s wheel of a few pieces of very fine shape ; others were painted in her presence on more regular and better executed designs than those on Indian porcelain. . . . Their Royal Highnesses, Monsieurt and Madame, often honour MM. Chicanneau with their presence at their manufactory. It is also frequently visited by princes, lords, ambassadors, and a number of amateurs, who go there daily to admire the beauty of the objects there manufactured, many of which are exported to foreign countries.” * In the eighteenth century Chinese porcelain was often termed Indian porcelain ; probably because it was imported into Europe by the East India Company. t Under the old French monarchy the eldest of the King’s brothers was called Monsieur. SOFT PORCELAIN. 109 This chorus of praise, and the success obtained by the porce- lain of St.-Cloud, were justified by the comparative perfection and delicacy of the productions of the new manufactory, especi- ally when compared with the somewhat coarse faience hitherto exclusively manufiictured in France. The porcelain of St.-Cloud is of a fine milky-white colour, of a soft and warm appearance, FIG. 43. TEAPOT, ST.-CLOUD PORCELAIN. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 997 — 1853. very transparent, and very tastefully and carefully decorated in blue with scallops {lambrequins) or arabesques in the pure French style, or with subjects in colours imitated from old Chinese and Japanese patterns. Many pieces were simply decorated with oriental flowers and ornaments in very low relief (Nos. 3370, 3238-53, etc.). We will mention as a specimen of the blue decoration of 1 lO FRENCH POTTERY. St.-Cloud the pretty godrooned teapot (No. 30-74) marked in blue with the sun, emblematical of Louis XIV. This mark, dating from the origin of the manufacture, was, at a later date, from 1712 onwards, replaced by that of Henri Trou, who had married Barbe Coudray, widow of Chicanneauj we have already mentioned this mark when dealing with faience, and it is to be seen on the pieces numbered 997-53, and 224-69. It is either painted in blue or engraved on the paste with a point. Polychrome pieces are sometimes marked in red. The manufactory of St.-Cloud, destroyed in 1773 by an incen- diary fire, was not reconstructed; it had for a long time been declining, and only common faience was manufactured there. Lille . — The manufactory of soft porcelain of Lille ranks second among French manufactories, not because of its import- ance, which is almost insignificant, but on account of the early date of its foundation, 1711. It was started by Barthelemy Dorez and his nephew, Pierre Pelissier, and seemingly only pro- duced porcelain copied from that of St.-Cloud, but the decora- tion of which was much less delicately executed ; besides, the paste is less pure and white than that of Chicanneau’s porcelain. The pieces numbered 225-69 and 31-74, may be considered as having been manufactured at Lille. The last-mentioned piece, a sugar-basin, is marked in blue with a D and a kind of star, perhaps the mark of Dorez. The mark consisting of one or two L’s, may also be considered as that of Lille, and the small pieces in the style of St.-Cloud, marked with various letters which (St.-Cloud — Trou.) SOFT PORCELAIN. Ill probably were used for facilitating the matching of patterns, are generally ascribed to that manufactory. This is, however, of little importance, most of those pieces being in every respect uninteresting. Chantilly . — Very different is the porcelain of Chantilly, which testifies to a real improvement, and several specimens of which may be looked upon as true works of art, as remarkable for the beauty and whiteness of the paste as for their perfect ornamenta- FIG. 44. COMPOTIER, CHANTILLY PORCELAIN. POLYCHROME DECORATION IN OLD JAPANESE STYLE. GASNAULT COLLECTION. tion, although the decoration was always very simple, and mostly consisted of a copy or imitation of the old patterns of the Japanese Imari ware (Nos. 984-53 and 637-53). An interesting peculiarity in the porcelain of Chantilly (and especially the earlier productions) is that the glaze, of which tin is a constituent, is opaque like that of faience, whilst in all other soft porcelain it is vitreous and translucent. The colours applied on this beautiful CHAPTER IX. SOFT PORCELAIN. Vincefi 7 ies — Sevres. In the year 1740, two brothers, named Dubois, formerly employed at the manufactory of St.-Cloud, which they had left to enter that of Chantilly, from which they were soon dismissed for bad conduct, applied to the Marquis Orry de Fulvy, brother of the Controller-General of Finance, and proposed to him to establish under his direction a porcelain manufactory. The moment was favourable, and their proposition was immediately accepted. Through his brother’s influence, Orry de Fulvy easily obtained from the King permission to use the riding-school of the Chateau de Vincennes, which had been unoccupied for a long time, as well as apartments situated in the buildings of the siirintendance. Unfortunately, after several years spent in long and costly experi- ments, and fruitless attempts whose failure was in a great measure due to their want of skill and bad conduct, the brothers Dubois left Vincennes without being able to refund the money lent to them on several occasions by Orry de Fulvy, or a sum of 10,000 livres (about 395/.) advanced to them by the King at Fulvy’s request as a loan or subsidy. Discouraged by this first attempt, Orry de Fulvy was thinking of giving up the undertaking so ominously started when an intelligent, honest, and devoted man, Gravant, who had been employed by the brothers Dubois, and assisted in their endea- SOFT PORCELAIN. 117 vours, proposed to him to carry on the experiments. Their efforts were crowned with success j and in the beginning of the year 1745 they were able to show specimens of sufficient merit to secure the ultimate success of the manufactor}'. Under the patronage of his brother, de Fulvy formed a company whose promoters were nearly all connected with the f&rmes,^ and the capital of which, divided into twenty-one shares and originally amounting to 90,000 livres (about 3555/.), was successively increased, and finally raised to 250,000 livres (about 9875/.). Besides, the King, who had already sacrificed the 10,000 livres advanced to the brothers Dubois, gave in 1747 to the company 40.000 li\Tes, in 1748 30,000 livres, and, in 1749, another 30.000 livres. An order in council, dated from the camp at Boost, the 24th of July, 1745, formally acknowledged the constitution of the new company protected for thirty years by the grant of an exclusive privilege. The manufactory was then established in most favourable conditions, and the learned Hellot, director of the Academy of Science, who was attached to the establishment at the King’s expense in 1746, in order to superintend the manu- facture, and particularly all the chemical manipulations, powerfully contributed to its success. The experiments and trials were nevertheless continued for a few years, and it was only in 1748 that mention was made for the first time of an important work of sufficiently perfect workmanship to be offered to the Queen. This was a vase which has not been traced, but a description of which has been given by the Due de Luynes in his interesting “ ]^Ie'moires.” He vTote under date Saturday, 13th of April, 1748: “AM. de Fulvy, who continues at the head of the porcelain manufactory of Vincennes, caused to be * The right of levying certain taxes was farmed out under the former French monarchy for a given sum paid down to linanciers, who were called fcrmicrs-ghicraiix. This right of levying taxes was termed ferme, thus ; la ferme du tabac, la fervic du scl, etc. FRENCH POTTERY. 114 Lastly, and before we speak of the manufactory of Sevres, in whose history that of French soft porcelain is condensed, we must mention the manufactories of Sceaux and Arras, although they were established some time after the royal manufactory. The porcelain of the manufactory of Sceaux denotes the same perfect manufacture and delicacy of decoration which we have noticed in the faience of that establishment, whose able director had secured the services of an artistic personiiel of the first order ; and the marks are similar to those used for faience. with this difference, that they are graven with a point on the paste, instead of being painted on the enamel. As to the manufactory of Arras, started towards the year 17 1 1, as proved by an inscription on a plate in the collection of Dr. Warmont, it seems to have confined its manufacture to the production of porcelain of common use, with blue decoration. Although this decoration was, as a rule, loosely executed, certain pieces, dating from the early period of manufacture, are remark- able — as, for instance, the wine-cooler in the Museum (No. 3406- 53), which is marked in blue with the initials A R, as is the case with all the porcelain manufactured at Arras. All the manufactories we have just mentioned have, as above stated, manufactured porcelain whose constituent basis was nearly the same, and their productions are distinguishable, besides the decoration, only by the different manufacturing processes, and, so to say, the knack {toiir-de-main) possessed by the various workmen. We have thought it expedient to wait until we dealt with the manufactory of Sevres, in which this SOFT PORCELAIN. 115 manufacture attained the highest perfection, before giving the composition of that unrivalled porcelain. The discovery of soft porcelain was a real improvement in the progress of ceramic art, yet the productions of all these manufactories, especially during the first half of the eighteenth century, were not, save in a few exceptional cases, very original, and could not be compared with the porcelain of Meissen, now imported in large quantities. With the exception of the blue scallop and arabesque decoration which we have noted when speaking of the origin of the manufactory of St.- Cloud, the ornamentation consisted of more or less appropriate copies of oriental patterns or imitations of German porcelain. This state of things was unsatisfactory. Notwithstanding the discovery of that artificial porcelain so much admired by Dr. Martin Lister, France was subordinate to Saxony, whose refined, delicate, and elegant productions were every day becoming more appreciated, and her skilful manufacturers, who hitherto had been ahead of other nations in all industrial arts, were, in this respect, obliged to acknowledge the superiority of Germany. This state of inferiority had several times been complained of at court, and greater efforts than had hitherto been attempted were on the eve of being made. I 2 CHAPTER IX. SOFT PORCELAIN. Vhicen?ies — Sevres. In the year 1740, two brothers, named Dubois, formerly employed at the manufactory of St.-Cloud, which they had left to enter that of Chantilly, from which they were soon dismissed for bad conduct, applied to the Marquis Orry de Fulvy, brother of the Controller-General of Finance, and proposed to him to establish under his direction a porcelain manufactory. The moment was favourable, and their proposition was immediately accepted. Through his brother’s influence, Orry de Fulvy easily obtained from the King permission to use the riding-school of the Chateau de Vincennes, which had been unoccupied for a long time, as well as apartments situated in the buildings of the siirintendance. Unfortunately, after several years spent in long and costly experi- ments, and fruitless attempts whose failure was in a great measure due to their want of skill and bad conduct, the brothers Dubois left Vincennes without being able to refund the money lent to them on several occasions by Orry de Fulvy, or a sum of 10,000 livres (about 395/.) advanced to them by the King at Fulvy’s request as a loan or subsidy. Discouraged by this first attempt, Orry de Fulvy was thinking of giving up the undertaking so ominously started when an intelligent, honest, and devoted man, Gravant, who had been employed by the brothers Dubois, and assisted in their endea- SOFT PORCELAIN. 117 vours, proposed to him to carry on the experiments. Their efforts were crowned with success ; and in the beginning of the year 1745 they were able to show specimens of sufficient merit to secure the ultimate success of the manufactory. Under the patronage of his brother, M. de Fulvy formed a company whose promoters were nearly all connected with the fermes^'^ and the capital of which, divided into twenty-one shares and originally amounting to 90,000 livres (about 3555/.), was successively increased, and finally raised to 250,000 livres (about 9875/.). Besides, the King, who had already sacrificed the 10,000 livres advanced to the brothers Dubois, gave in 1747 to the company 40.000 livres, in 1748 30,000 livres, and, in 1749, another 30.000 livres. An order in council, dated from the camp at Boost, the 24th of July, 1745, formally acknowledged the constitution of the new company protected for thirty years by the grant of an exclusive privilege. The manufactory was then established in most favourable conditions, and the learned Hellot, director of the Academy of Science, who was attached to the establishment at the King’s expense in 1746, in order to superintend the manu- facture, and particularly all the chemical manipulations, powerfully contributed to its success. The experiments and trials were nevertheless continued for a few years, and it was only in 1748 that mention was made for the first time of an important work of sufficiently perfect workmanship to be offered to the Queen. This was a vase which has not been traced, but a description of which has been given by the Due de Luynes in his interesting “ Memoires.” He wrote under date Saturday, 13th of April, 1748: “ M. de Fulvy, who continues at the head of the porcelain manufactory of Vincennes, caused to be * The right of levying certain taxes was farmed out under the former French monarchy for a given sum paid down to financiers, who were called fermiers-gincraiix. This right of levying taxes was termed ferme, thus : la ferme du tabac^ la ferine, du sel, etc. ii8 FRENCH POTTERY. brought to the Queen to-day a porcelain vase presented by the company to Her Majesty. This vase is of white fashioned porce- lain, and accompanied by three small white figures ; the whole is mounted on a gilt bronze pedestal. There is in the vase a bouquet of flowers made also of porcelain. M. de Fulvy told us that there were four hundred and eighty flowers in the bouquet. The pedestal, vase, and bouquet may be about 3 feet in height (i metre). The bronze mounting alone cost 100 louis (about 94/.), and the porcelain about as much ; it is a perfect work of its kind — as much for the whiteness as for the execution of the small figures and flowers. This manufactory is now, for the making of flowers, superior to those of Saxony.”* This vase, the mounting of which alone cost, not 2000 livres, as the Due de Luynes wrote, but 2600, as entered in the cash-book (the only register of the transactions of that time which has been preserved at the manufactory of Sevres), was, so to say, a revelation of what could be expected from the new undertaking ; and its success was so great that the young Dauphine, Marie Josephe de Saxe, sent a similar vase to her father, Frederick Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, in order to show him that her adopted country could produce porcelain equal to that of Meissen. To the Due de Luynes again we are indebted for this infor- mation (3rd of January, 1749), to which he added the following particulars, which give an idea of the value attached to that vase : “It is sent to Dresden on a hand-barrow borne by two men, who expect to accomplish the journey in not more than thirty days, and a bargain has been struck with them at 100 sols per diem for each man.” This arrangement was subsequently modified, and it was finally decided to take the vase to pieces and to send it by the ordinary coaches, the man who had “mounted” it being also sent to Dresden in order to remount it before its presentation to the King of Poland. From the preceding description, it will be seen that these * “Memoires du Due de Luynes,” edition Firmin Didot, 2, ix. SOFT PORCELAIN. 119 vases, like most of the porcelain originally manufactured at Vincennes, were white, and that their decoration consisted mostly of bouquets of flowers modelled and painted au naturel. Those flowers were in such vogue that, in 1749, the first year they were sold, the sale of porcelain amounted only to 7269 livres 19 sols, whilst that of flowers reached the sum of 36,700 livres 12 sols. But up to that period (1749), the expenses had been great, and there had been no income; of the 350,000 livres which made up the capital, hardly 30,000 livres was left ; and the manufactory was entering a period of real practical working. Unfortunately the directors, and especially Orry de Fulvy, intoxicated by the praises bestowed upon them on all sides, notably at court, were over-sanguine of success, and estimated the average amount of business would reach 800,000 livres yearly, 300,000 in France and the rest abroad, principally in England. This was far from being realised ; for in 1750 the sales amounted only to 32,696 livres, of which 26,323 was for flowers, and in 1751 to 63,799 livres, of which 26,132 was for flowers. The person?iel of the manufactory, composed of about one hundred workmen and artists, who were paid by the piece or received a fixed salary, was under the orders of Hellot, the scientific director, and of Duplessis, the artistic director, and goldsmith to the King, who supplied the shapes and superin- tended the execution of the pieces ; whilst the decoration (painting and gilding) was executed under the direction of Mathieu, formerly an enamel painter of some repute, who was soon succeeded by Bachelier, a man of originality, taste, and learning, who rendered immense service to the industrial art of the latter end of the eighteenth century, and to whom the most perfect productions of Sevres are certainly due. Gravant manu- factured the paste, the making of which was no longer a secret. In the year 1751 alone he supplied paste to the amount of 800,000 livres, an enormous sum when the comparatively small 120 FRENCH POTTERY. amount of the sales is considered; but which is accounted for by the unequal quality of the paste he made, occasioning numerous accidents in the firing, through which more than half of the pieces manufactured were useless. The porcelain manufactured at Vincennes was now in con- siderable repute, and the interest evinced in the manufactory by the King, the Dauphin, and above all, by the Marquise de Pompadour (the supreme authority in matters of art at that time), had made porcelain quite fashionable ; the consequence was that the rival manufactories already in existence, or those which were being established everywhere, made every effort to obtain a knowledge of its manufacturing, decorating, and gilding pro- cesses. The rival directors visited or sent their agents to visit the workshops of Vincennes, and, by the offer of heavy bribes, tried to deprive it of its most skilful workmen. M. de Fulvy then obtained an order to prevent strangers from being admitted to the manufactory, and a decree of the Royal Council which imposed a fine of 3000 livres on ‘‘every owner of a manufactory who employed a workman who had left that of Vincennes.” But, as we have already pointed out, the making of the paste of French porcelain was no longer a secret; its com- position was known, and the personal manipulation alone — tours de main — differed. The paste was composed of sand of Fontainebleau, saltpetre, sea-salt, soda {soude F Alica 7 ite\ alum, gypsum, or parings of alabaster ; all these elements were mixed together, and placed in an oven in a layer of considerable thickness, where, after being baked for at least fifty hours, they formed a perfectly white frit or vitrified paste. The frit, having previously been crushed, was mixed with Argenteuil marl in the proportion of nine pounds of frit to three pounds of marl, and a paste was thus obtained which was kneaded by machine for about three weeks ; it was then put to dry in troughs, pressed by cylinders, sifted, and wetted so as to form lumps which were made plastic with green SOFT PORCELAIN. I2I soap and boiling water j these various operations required considerable time and care. The preparation of the glaze required quite as much care. It consisted of sand of Fontainebleau, litharge, salts of soda, Bougival silex or gun-flint, and potash ; all these were crushed and mixed together, and were then melted in crucibles, in which they were transformed into a kind of crystal, which, being pulverised and wetted, formed an enamel. The pieces were first baked “ in biscuit,” and then enamelled, the glaze being poured over the pieces (arroscnmit) and not the pieces dipped into the glaze j and in order to fix the enamel more firmly to the biscuit, it was mixed with vinegar at the moment it was applied. The above explanation will enable the reader to form a better idea of what the nature of soft porcelain really was \ that is, a kind of vitrification of very fine and close texture, whose unglazed parts are so smooth and, so to speak, velvety to the touch, that it can almost be distinguished by this peculiarity alone. But the superiority of soft porcelain is chiefly due to the glaze it imparts to the colours, which seem to blend completely and, as it were, to incorporate with the enamel with which they are fused. This is one of the distinctive features of this porcelain, and may, when other characteristics are wanting, assist in distinguishing it. When soft porcelain is held slantingly, so that the light falls partly on a painted and partly on a white surface, there is no perceptible difference in the glaze or enamel of these two surfaces, which are equally pure. If, on the contrary, hard porcelain is examined under the same conditions, a certain difference is discernible ; and however carefully the colours may have been glazed, they appear less brilliant than the enamel, with which they do not incorporate. In the year 1751, the death of the Marquis de Fulvy, who was the principal shareholder, rendered necessary the reimburse- ment to his heirs of his bonds and shares in the profits ; and the 122 FRENCH POTTERY, partnership was dissolved. By a fresh order in Council, dated 19th August, 1753, the company was reconstituted on a new basis, and the privilege was renewed for twelve years only. The progress made in the various branches of the manufactory since it was started induced the King to take one-third of the shares, and to officially give it his patronage. He also authorised it to assume the title of Manufacture royale des Porcelaines de France^ and to mark with his monogram the pieces which it manufactured henceforth. The capital of the new company was raised to 240,000 livres, divided into eighty shares of 3000 livres each. The secrets of the manufacture became, with the company’s assent, the property of the King, and his agents were exclusively to be made acquainted with them ; the direction was entrusted to an intelligent and upright man, Boileau, a royal commissary was appointed, and the artistic personnel was reinforced by the nomi- nation of the academician. Falconet, sculptor to the King, who had charge of the modelling department, whilst the head painter was a man of talent named Genest, who was placed under the direction of Bachelier. The available accommodation at Vincennes being insufficient, owing to the considerable extension of the manufacture, and it being thought desirable to transfer the manufactory to a place nearer to the King’s usual residence, a new site had to be pro- cured, and Sevres was selected, its position between Paris and Versailles being well adapted for the purpose. The ground, on which formerly stood a small chffieau belonging to Lulli, a wing of which still remains, was purchased; and, in the year 1756, SOFT PORCELAIN. 123 the new manufactory was formally installed in the buildings specially erected for it.* Besides the flowers, detached or in bouquets, so finely modelled in relief and painted au natiu'd on the pure and milky enamel upon which the colours assumed the brilliant and velvety appearance of natural flowers, we must mention, among the most remarkable productions of the manufactory of Sevres during the first period whose history we have briefly sketched, the beautiful ornamental vases with pure and deep hleu de roi or bleu de Sevres ground, or with the pink ground termed rose came or rose Po?npa- dour (sometimes erroneously called rose Dubarry)^ and which has never since been successfully imitated; the table-services, cabarets and tete-a-tete., and particularly the numerous fancy articles — such as snuff and bonbon-boxes, coat-buttons, heads of canes, needle- cases, etc. etc. — so elegantly decorated with flowers or figures executed by artists accustomed to the delicacy and refinement of fan and enamel-painting, who found in the new process resources and a richness of tints hitherto unknown to them, and which the firing process alone can give. Boucher and Vanloo supplied the designs for the figures and groups, which were modelled by skilful sculptors and executed in “ biscuit.” The manufacture was considerably increased after the ^estab- lishment was transferred to Sevres, and it reached such a degree of perfection that France, which in 1745 had to go to Saxony for all its fine porcelain, was, in less than fifteen years, justified in preferring its own to any other porcelain on account of the superiority of its productions, and was, besides, able to boast that it supplied other countries, where its porcelain was appreciated and eagerly purchased. In the years 1757 and 1758, the sales amounted to 210,000 and 214,000 livres. * These buildings, after having been repaired, have been occupied since 1882 by a normal school for ladies ; the manufactory was in 1877 trans- ferred to the new buildings constructed in the park of St. Cloud, close to the Rue de Sevres. 124 FRENCH POTTERY. Notwithstanding this comparatively prosperous state of things, a difference between the royal commissary and the company led to its dissolution in 1759. Rightly or wrongly, the share- holders, dissatisfied with the financial results, tried to obtain from the King further concessions ; an inquiry was made, and their claims were found so utterly groundless that the ministers declined to listen to them, although they threatened to withdraw. But on the contrary, the King, by the advice of his counsel, ordered the amount of their shares to be refunded to them, and thus became the sole proprietor of the manufactory, to which he granted an annual subsidy of 96,000 livres, payable in twelve instalments, and Boileau, who had so ably managed it, was main- tained in his post as director. At that time, the manufacture depended wholly on the pro- cesses of artificial porcelain or porcelaine de France^ now known under the name of soft porcelain,”'^ unrivalled from a purely artistic point of view, but of indifferent value when applied to domestic purposes, and in this respect not to be compared with the hard or kaolinic porcelain imported from China or from Ger- many. The Sevres manufactory, established chiefly with a view to nullify foreign competition, was for that reason eager to accept the propositions of two German workmen, Busch and Stadelmeyer, who offered to disclose the secret of the porcelain of Saxony (Dresden china). After several experiments, carried on at an expense of no less than 26,000 livres, they were discharged, their process depending entirely on the employment of materials which had not yet been found in France, and would have had to be imported from abroad at great expense. For the same reason the * The denomination of “soft” does notapply to the hardness of the paste, but rather, and particularly to the nature of the glaze or enamel, which can easily be scratched with a knife, and to the inability of this porcelain to stand a high temperature as compared to hard or kaolinic porcelain. The name of “ soft porcelain,” ox pate iendre, was only applied to artificial porcelain in the early part of this century; until then it was known under the name of “ French porcelain,” or “ Sevres porcelain.” SOFT PORCELAIN. 125 offers made in 1761 by Hannong of Strasburg, who possessed the secret of the processes used by his father, were also rejected. Several men of science, however — such as Macquer, a chemist who was attached to the manufactory after the death of Hellot — were strongly of opinion that kaolin was to be found in France as well as in Germany, where numerous beds of it were being discovered; and they had called to this subject the attention of their provincial confreres. Their previsions turned out true, and on the 26th of April, 1760, Odolant Desnos, a physician of Alengon, informed Macquer that kaolin had been found in the quarries of Hestre, where it was known among the workmen under the name of chenar. Unfortunately, the porcelain made with that kaolin was gray and rather coarse, and the experiments had to be discontinued; they were resumed towards 1764, by the Count de Brancas-Lauraguais, who manufactured with it some pieces, a few of which are to be seen in museums and private collections ; they are generally moulded medallions, bearing on the reverse the graven initials of the noble ceramist, B. L., and sometimes a date. Macquer was not discouraged, and continued his researches ; but it was not until 1768 that he was made acquainted with the magnificent beds of kaolin of St. Yrieix, near Limoges, accidentally discovered by the wife of a poor country surgeon named Darnet. A piece of that kaolin has been preserved in the museum of Sevres ; it was sent to Macquer by the Archbishop of Bordeaux, together with a little enamelled statuette of the infant Bacchus which he had had made with a portion of the kaolin. The manufactory had reached its most ambitious aims ; but the able director, Boileau, who had so skilfully and devotedly managed it, was not to reap the benefit of the new discovery. He died in 1773, leaving in the coffers of the manufactory a sum of 300,000 livres, and goods, book-debts, and stores for an equal amount, the whole of which was in less than six years squandered by his successor. Parent, who incurred 126 FRENCH POTTERY. inconsiderate expenses, and was ultimately sent to prison for reckless mismanagement. After an interim of a few months, occupied in inquiring into the administration and settling the accounts of Parent, the King, by a decree of the 20th of December, 1778, appointed in his stead Regnier, former sub-director, whose ability and honesty were known to him. Under his able direction the manufacture of important works in hard porcelain was commenced, such as the magnificent vases which adorned the palace of St. -Cloud before the war of 1870, and those which are to this moment an object of admiration in the galleries of the Louvre. From 1769* the manufacture of the new porcelain daily acquired greater importance, and was gradually substituted for that of soft porcelain. Notwithstanding its incontestable artistic superiority, artificial poi'celain., as we have already pointed out, could not, on account of its composition, be applied to the making of articles of domestic use, or to that of pieces of large size ; and in this respect the discovery of kaolin realised a distinct improvement. In the early part of the year 1789 the manufactory of Sevres had no rival, and its deserved renown excited in all Europe the admiration and envy of foreign sovereigns, who eagerly purchased its productions ; but the suppression of the privilege under which it had grown, the commercial competition of private industry, now relieved from the obstacles which had hitherto stood in its way, and which, in order to compete against the manufactory of Sevres, bribed away its best workmen, together with the financial embarrassments of the treasury, which pre- * It was on the 21st of December, 1769, that Macquer submitted for the King’s inspection, at the Chateau of Versailles, the first sixty specimens of the new porcelain. A letter written by Macquer to his brother, a few days later, contains an extremely interesting account of the day he spent at Versailles, and of the praises bestowed upon him by the King and the most important court officials. SOFT PORCELAIN. 127 eluded the possibility of any pecuniary assistance, and, above all, the difficulty of collecting the book-debts, soon combined to place it in a critical position, and even to seriously threaten its existence. It was then proposed to sell the manufactory in order to pay its debts, and to diminish the liabilities of the crown in proportion j but on the report of thtDireciew' des Bcifiments Royaux, showing that the sale would be disastrous, and moreover that, considering the difficult position of France at the time, the value of the manu- factory could never be realised, Louis XVI. resolved to keep it, and wrote with his own hands, at the foot of the report, the following lines, which give an idea of the state of things at Sevres at that time : “ I intend to keep the manufactory of Sevres at my own expense ; but I wish the expenditure to be reduced and so regulated as not to exceed 100,000 ecus (300,000 livres), and the monthly salaries of workmen not to exceed 12,000 livres (about 476/.), if they cannot be further reduced. The debts shall be paid out of the proceeds of the sales, and I will have no more debts incurred — an easy thing, since I supply the money monthly out of the funds set apart for the expenses of the royal palaces {batiments). I will have an economical plan of administration elaborated before the end of the year. Accurate accounts must be kept of the materials supplied to me, as well as of the sales, the proceeds of which shall be handed to me after payment of the debts, in order that I may judge from a thorough knowledge of the matter whether I think fit to keep the manufactory or to sell it on more advantageous terms than is now possible. “At St. Cloud, the 7th of August, 1790.” But events soon succeeded each other with rapidity. The National Assembly decided that the manufactory of Sevres and * The subsidy granted to the manufactory in that year (1789) only amounted to 59,000 livres. 128 FRENCH POTTERY, that of the Gobelins were not to be included in nor alienated with the so-called national property,^ and by a decree of that body of the 26th of May, 1791, they were comprised amongst the domains left at the disposal of the King, and chargeable to his civil list. After the overthrow of the Monarchy, the Convention, on the report of the Minister Roland, decided that the manufactory, being one of the institutions of which France was justly proud, should be considered as a national establishment, and placed under the supervision of AgriciUhLre et Beaux Arts in the Mmistere de rinterieur. During the whole of the Revolutionary period the manu- factory was left to its own resources, and the want of funds was so great that at a certain moment the administration, being unable to give the slightest remuneration in money to the few artists and workmen employed, was obliged, while hoping for more prosperous times, to solicit from the Government that rations in kind, such as grain and provisions, should be distributed to them from the Government stores ;^as also the authorisation to organise a lottery, with porcelain objects as prizes, in order to raise a little money for them. So critical and difficult was the position that the considerable arrears resulting from it were not definitely settled until 1808. Under the Directory, the administration was vested in a triumvirate, composed of Salmon, Hettlinger, and Meyer, who occupied this position until 1800, when the illustrious Alexandre Brongniart was appointed director. But before dealing with this new era in the existence of the manufactory of Sevres, when the manufacture and decoration of soft porcelain altogether ceased, we believe it important to look back upon, and to pass in review, the chief works produced at the end of the reign of Louis XV. and during that of Louis XVL, and particularly to give a list of the marks employed during that period. SOFT PORCELAIN. 129 As we have already stated, it is from the time |when the manufactory was transferred to Sevres that the manufacture acquired considerable importance ; and it was then that a great FIG. 45. VASE, SfeVRES PORCELAIN. JONES COLLECTION, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO, 75I — 1882. number of exceptional pieces were made which were to secure for the royal manufactory European renown, and place it in the first rank amongst porcelain manufactories. The most remarkable plastic works included The Bather {La K 130 FRENCH POTTERY. Baigneuse), and Les Amours^ by Falconet ; the “ hunting scenes,” after Oudry ; the life-size busts of the King and Madame Dubarry ; and the charming biscuit statuettes, for which the sculptors Pajou, Clodion, La Rue, and many others, supplied the models. It would be impossible to mention the great quantity of middle-size ornamental vases dating from that period j the finest are now in the matchless collection of Her Majesty the Queen, at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. There are in the Museum some remarkable specimens, especially in the Jones collection. Then also were manufactured the plaques^ so artistically decorated with bouquets of flowers, varied subjects, and land- scapes with figures, intended to adorn the cabinets, tables, and those numerous elegant and light pieces of furniture, of which the Jones collection contains such beautiful and valuable examples, and the copies of the paintings of Boucher, Desportes, Vanloo, Oudry, etc. Several tables were also made at the same period — that, for instance, which was ordered by Turkey — as well as exceptional pieces like the “ toilette,” offered to the Countess du Nord when travelling in France with her husband, afterwards Paul I. This admirable piece of furniture, a marvel of elegance, richness, and taste, described in such eulogistic terms in all contemporaneous writings, and on which the first application of translucent enamels on paillons (or metal) was made, was executed at a cost-price to the manufactory of 75,000 livres, an enormous sum at that time. A large number of table services and plates, ornamented with rich and varied decorations, were also manufactured ; the most remarkable of these services was that made for the Empress of Russia, Catherine II., whose monogram it bears. Two plates in the Museum (Nos. 3643 and 3644-56) belonged to this magnifi- cent service, which cost, together with the centre-piece that was added to it, 245,000 livres. When we consider these remarkable works we cannot help regretting the decision taken by Brongniart to discontinue the SOFT PORCELAIN, 131 manufacture of soft porcelain ; for it seems to us that no material was so [appropriate to the refined and delicate art of the end of the reign of Louis XV., which, in spite of its frivolity and affectation, more apparent than real, has nevertheless produced FIG. 46. VASE, St;VRES PORCELAIN. JONES COLLECTION, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, NO. 748 — 1882. admirable works, typically French, and in which the skilful artists of Sevres have displayed not only the fertility and suppleness of their talent, but often also their great knowledge and ability. Alarks and Monograms on Soft Porcelain , — The decree of the K 2 132 FRENCH POTTERY. 19th of August, 1753, whilst renewing the privilege of the manufactory of Sevres, and authorising it to be styled ManiL- faciure Royale des Porcelaines de France , made it compulsory to mark all the pieces, a few of which only had hitherto been marked; each mark was, besides, to be accompanied by a chronogrammatic letter: for instance, A expressed the year 1753, B, 1754, and so on. When the letter Z was reached the letters were doubled. It can therefore be assumed with tolerable certainty that all pieces marked simply with two interlaced L’s (Nos. 1968-55, 3614-56, 3615-56, 3619-56, 525-75, etc. etc.) have been manufactured at Vincennes, and are of a date anterior to 1753, or date from the commencement of that year. We append a chronological table of the letters employed, and the corresponding years ; A .. 1 • 1753 I .. . 1761 R-^ ... 1769 BB ... 1778 KK . . 1786 B .. • 1754 K .. . 1762 S ... 1770 CC ... 1779 LL .. . 1787 C .. • 1755 i L .. • 1763 T ... 1771 DD ... 1780 MM .. . 1788 D .. '• 1756 i M .. • 1764 U ... 1772 EE ... 1781 NN .. . 1789 E .. • 1757 N .. • 1765 V ... 1773 FF ... 1782 GO .. . 1790 F .. • 1758 0 .. . 1766 X .. 1774 GG ... 1783 PP .. . 1791 G .. 1759 1 P .. . 1767 Y ... 1775 HH ... 1784 QQ •• . 1792 H .. 1760 Q .. . 1768 Z ... 1776 II ... 1785 RR .. • 1793 AA ... 1777 From 1793 the change in the Government brought about the suppression of the royal mark, for which the following mono- grams, in every case accompanied by the word “ Sevres,” were substituted : No. 770^2-77. S^vrej ^ rf ^ A f A * To commemorate the apparition of the comet of 1769, a “comet” was substituted for the letter R ; however, we have never seen porcelain so marked. SOFT PORCELAIN. 133 Nearly all the marks employed from 1753 to 1800 were accompanied by the monograms, signs, or emblems of the painters and decorators : No. 179. Jones Collection. No. 3429-63. No. 20i2^’-55. Mark of Buteux, Sen., 1760. Mark of Lecloux, 1756. Mark of Dutanda, 1791. These marks are also placed on the hard porcelain manu- factured from and after 1769 ; originally, the pieces intended for the king or princes of the royal family were marked with the two L’s surmounted by the royal crown : No. 185 in the Jones Collection. A cup made on the occasion of the birth of the Dauphin, son of Louis XVI., in the year 1780— mark of Leve, Sen. The royal mark therefore does not always indicate, as is commonly believed, that the piece on which it appears is made of soft porcelain. CHAPTER X. NAMES AND MARKS OF PRINCIPAL PAINTERS OF SEVRES OF THE FIRST PERIOD. We subjoin, in alphabetical order, the names of the principal painters of the first period, with the marks, signs, or monograms adopted by them ; we have compiled them from porcelain of undoubted authenticity and from documents preserved at Sevres. SOFT PORCELAIN. 135 MARKS AND MONOGRAMS OF THE Painters, Decorators, and Gilders of the Manufactory OF SfeVRES, FROM 1 753 TO 180O. Aloncle. Birds, Animals, Attributes. 1 Binet. Detached Bouquets. Anteaume. Landscapes, Animals. Binet, Mdme. Flowers. Asselin. Miniature Portraits. Boucher. Flowers, Wreaths. Aubert, the elder. Flowers. Boucher. Landscapes, Figures, Ornaments. Bailly. Flowers. y- Bouillat. Flowers, Landscapes. Bardet. Flowers. Boulanger. Detached Bouquets. Barre. Detached Bouquets. Boulanger, Jun. Children, Rustic Subjects. Barrat. Wreaths, Bouquets. Bulidon. Detached Bouquets. Baudouin. Friezes, Ornaments. '?7'i i Bun EL, Mdme. Nh Manon Buteux. Flowers. V A Becquet. Flowers. V Buteux, Sen. Flowers, Attributes. 6. Bertrand. Detached Bouquets. Buteux, elder son. Detached Bouquets. Bienfait. Gilding. Buteux, younger son. Children, Rustic Subjects. 136 FRENCH POTTERY. Capelle. Friezes. Chulot. Attributes, Flowers. ? Cardin. Detached Bouquets, COMMELIN. Bouquets, Wreaths. 5 " Carrier. Flowers. CORNAILLE. Flowers, Bouquets. (T. Castel. Landscapes, Hunting Scenes, Birds. 7 Couturier. Gilding. Caton. Children, Portraits, Eh. Dieu. Chinese Subjects, Gilding. Caprice. Flowers, Detached Bouquets. •IC Dodin. Figures, Portraits. c h Chabry. Miniature Painting. Drand. Chinese Figures, Gilding. 73 Chanou, Mdme. A% Julie Durosey. P'lowers. Dubois. Flowers, Garlands, c p Chapuis, the elder. Flowers, Birds, etc. Dusolle. Detached Bouquets. V Chapuis, the younger. Detached Bouquets. D.T Dutanda. Flowers, Garlands. Chauvaux, Sen. Gilding. Evans. Birds, Landscapes. /n Chauvaux, Jun. Bouquets, Gilding. F Falot. Arabesques, Birds. Chevalier. Flowers, Bouquets. • 9 Fontaine. Attributes, Miniature Painting. /^ De Choisy. Flowers, Arabesques. Fontelltau. Gilding. SOFT PORCELAIN, 137 Y Four£. Flowers, Bouquets. Hilken. Figures, Pastoral i Subjects. % Fritsch. Figures, Children. H Houry. Flowers. Fumez. Detached Bouquets. 1 ? Huny. Flowers, Bouquets. Gauthier. Landscapes, Animals. X Joyau. P'lowers, Bouquets. (? Genest. Figures, Genre Subjects. j Turin. Gilding. Genin. Flowers, Garlands. S. 'K La Roche. Flowers, Attributes. §d. Gerard. Pastoral Subjects, ■a- Le Bel, the elder. Flowers, Figures. ' r- GfiRARD, Mdme. N'ee Vautrin. Flowers. : Le Bel, the younger. Bouquets, Garlands. fl Girard. Chinese Figures, Arabesques. i X L6ANDRE. Pastoral Subjects. Gomery. Flowers, Birds. LL Lecot. Chinese Subjects. Gremont, Flowers, Garlands. w Ledoux. Landscapes, Birds. X Grison. Gilding. Le Guay. Gilding. /^ Henrion. Flowers, Garlands. Ci'i) V Leguay. Children, Chinese Subjects. 7i c H6RICOURT. Flowers, Garlands. Cm L Lev 6, Sen. Flowers, Birds, Attri- butes. 138 FRENCH POTTERY. y Lev^;, F£ux. Flowers, Chinese Subjects. c^O Parpette. Flowers, Bouquets. yy Maqueret, Mdme. Nee Bouillat. Flowers. If" Parpette, Mdlle. L. Flowers. Fvl Massy. Flowers, Garlands. Pajou. Figures. f M6RAULT, the elder. Friezes, Ornaments. P.T. Petit. Flowers. 5>- M^rault, the younger. Flowers, Garlands. / Pfeiffer. Bouquets. X Micaud. Flowers, Cartouches. Pierre, the elder. Flowers, Bouquets. 771 Michel. Detached Bouquets. Pierre, the younger. Bouquets, Garlands. JSR Moiron. Detached Bouquets. PH Philippine, the elder. Children, Genre Subjects. Mongenot. Flowers, Bouquets. N PiTHOU, the elder. Portraits, Historical Subjects. y Morin. Sea Pieces, Military Subjects. PiTHOU, the younger. Figures, Flowers, Ornaments. A ' Motel. Landscapes. Q • POUILLOT. Detached Bouquets. Niquet. Detached Bouquets. HP Provost. Gilding. Noel. Flowers, Ornaments. ♦ • Raux. Detached Bouquets. Nouailhier, Mdme. Nie S. Durosey. Flowers. Rocher. Figures. SOFT PORCELAIN. ^39 Rosset. Landscapes. @ @ ® ® Theodore. Gilding. a A Roussel. Detached Bouquets. J_ Th^venet, Sen. Flowers, Cartouches, Groups. I. /7 SCHRADRE. Birds, Landscapes. /f Th^;venet, Jun. Ornaments, Friezes. SiNSSON. Flowers, Garlands, Bouquets. \D Vaud6. Gilding, Flowers. •• • Sioux, the elder. Flowers, Garlands. ■w Vavasseur. Arabesques. o Sioux, the younger. Flowers, Garlands. ViEILLARD. Attributes, Ornaments. 0 Tabary. Birds. 2ooo Vincent. Gilding. -4r__ Taillandier. Bouquets, Garlands. ¥ Xrowet. Flowers, Arabesques. • ® Taudart. Groups of Flowers, Garlands. f Yvernel. Landscapes, Birds. Tardi. Detached Bouquets. The knowledge of these marks and monograms may, in many instances, assist in detecting false pieces \ for it often happens that the forgers have indiscriminately copied the marks of Sevres, and placed the signature of a gilder on pieces painted in colours, or the monogram of a painter of flowers on pieces decorated with figures, and vice versa; we have, for instance, seen the following mark, 2 00 o 140 FRENCH POTTERY. which is that of a gilder named Vincent {vingt-ceiits — that is, twenty hundred, or 2000 — is pronounced in French exactly like “Vincent;” this pun, which cannot be translated into English, bears evidence to the facetious turn of mind of some artists of that period), on a hard porcelain object decorated with flowers. In this case the fraud was easily detected, the more so as the letter H corresponds to the year 1760, a time when, as we have already said, hard porcelain had not yet been manufactured. The forger, therefore, had copied a mark he had seen on soft porcelain without inquiring into its signification. We deem it important to warn our readers against the imitations of all kinds which have been made of Sevres porcelain, and in particular of soft porcelain. The quantity of “ Old Sevres ” sold in Paris, and of pCUe iendre yearly exported, chiefly to America and England, is not to be believed, and the celebrated manufactory would have had need of a much longer time than it has been in existence to be able to produce all the porcelain sold under its name. Besides the difference in the marks we have noted, several other signs can assist in distinguishing the genuine Sevres porcelain. There is, amongst the various imitations of “ Old Sevres,” a whole class of pieces which it is difficult to distinguish ; we mean the pieces of genuine white porcelain manufactured at Sevres, and decorated afterwards and even recently. In his enthusiasm for kaolinic or hard porcelain, Brongniart had wholly discontinued the manufacture of soft paste, and in 1804 he caused to be sold by the van-load, and at ridiculously low prices, all that remained of widecorated soft porcelain in the warehouses of the old manufactory of Louis XV. This porcelain was purchased by chamhrelans* of Paris, and even by dealers of London, where * The name of chamhrelans was given to the porcelain painters who worked in their own dwellings, en chambre, and decorated, or employed a sometimes numerous staff to decorate, the porcelain manufactured in Paris or Limoges for the large Parisian retail establishments. SOFT PORCELAIN. 141 French porcelain was much esteemed, and has been from that time, and is still, the staple article of the higher branch of the spurious porcelain trade. It requires a very exercised eye to distinguish it when well decorated, as was the case during the first years of the Restauration ; for at that time a certain number of painters who formerly belonged to the manufactory were still living (some of whom had been superannuated, whilst others had deserted the manufactory), these being practically acquainted with the old processes of decoration, lent their skilful assistance to the dealers without considering the consequences. Porcelain thus decorated has for a long time been considered, even by the most competent judges, as authentic Sevres porcelain ; as, for instance, a breakfast service presented in 1816 to Louis XVIII. as having belonged to Louis XV. This service, ornamented with the portraits of Louis XIV. and the celebrated ladies of his court, was given by the King (when its spuriousness had been proved to him) to the Ceramic Museum of Sevres, where it now is. However perfectly the decoration may have been executed on porcelain of this kind, there are yet other signs by which it may be distinguished, and which we will indicate. The first, which is almost infallible, but requires a prac- tised eye and a good knowledge of soft porcelain, is the use of chrome-greeji in the painting of bouquets and landscapes. Dis- covered only in 1802, oxide of chromium was, on account of its being difficult of fusion and of the richness of its colour, soon substituted for oxide of copper, hitherto exclusively employed for making green colours ; and chrome-green, originally used only at Sevres, rapidly became a commercial commodity of general use. The painters who subsequently decorated the porcelain sold by Brongniart evidently lost sight of this fact, and made use of the only green pigments which were then to be found, not thinking that by so doing they themselves supplied the means of detecting fraud. Chrome-green is warmer in tone and more yellow than copper-green, and has not, like the latter, when thickly laid on, 142 FRENCH POTTERY. that metallic appearance so characteristic and so conspicuous in some kinds of soft porcelain, in the faience of Strasburg and Marseilles, and in particular in the Chinese porcelain known to amateurs under the name of famille verte. The difference of colour in the two kinds of porcelain is sufficiently discernible to be perceived by a practised eye, and is particularly evident when two pieces, the one genuine and the other spurious, are placed side by side and compared with one another. Again, soft porcelain which has not been decorated at Sevres, may easily enough be distinguished by a striking peculiarity in the gilding. The gold thickly laid on, has always, on old porce- lain — the true kind — a dull appearance ; it was simply sprinkled on when the piece came out of the muffle-kiln (as is even now the practice), and was then polished into designs or modelled with a common nail firmly set m a wooden handle. In the early part of this century agate burnishers were substituted, which made the work easier, but changed the character of the old gilding and made a great difference in the lines thus burnished. In old Sevres porcelain the lines are firm, clean-edged, well-defined, and in some cases slightly hollow \ for when the nail was used the polish was produced chiefly by pressure, whilst in imitation or modern porcelain the lines are wider, less pure, and above all less “ graven,” as it were, because with the agate burnishers the polish is more easily obtained, and simply by gentle friction. We do not think it necessary to deal with decorated soft porcelain of modern manufacture, because the difference in the paste itself, and in the texture of such pieces when compared with Sevres porcelain, is so conspicuous that we are but little disposed to pity the amateurs credulous enough to be imposed upon by the coarse devices of grasping dealers. CHAPTER XL Hard Porcelain. — i. Manufactory of Shres. With the directorate of the illustrious Alexandre Brongniart a new era began for the manufactory of Sevres. He introduced wise reforms and set the example of disinterestedness by him- self proposing to reduce his emoluments from 6000 to 3000 francs, whilst through his personal influence he materially con- tributed to reduce the expenses of the manufactory by obtaining gratuitously from various artists, and chiefly from his father (who was a skilful architect), the new models adapted to the taste of the day. He succeeded in putting in order the affairs of the manufactory and making it self-supporting until the year 1804, when it became crown property, and was managed for the Emperor, who provided the funds by means of yearly subsidies. This state of things has ever since been maintained uninter- ruptedly; on two distinct occasions, however, in 1830 and 1848, attempts were made to suppress this establishment, although it was one of the most famous industrial institutions in France. Brongniart remained at the head of the manufactory for a period of forty-seven years, and the successive governments which ruled France during that time all acknowledged his honesty and the devoted manner in which he managed this establishment, whose prosperity was then at its highest It was Brongniart who, in 1823, organised this unique Ceramic 144 FRENCH POTTER Y. Museum of Sevres, and appointed keeper the lamented Riocreux, who continued at his post for forty-eight years, and to whom amateurs and dealers alike applied for advice and information, which he used to give to them with untiring courtesy. To that time may chiefly be referred the greatest improvements made in France and in Europe in the manufacture of hard porcelain, and which, for the greater part, were first introduced in the manufactory, and then adopted by private industry. Brongniart died on the 7th of October, 1847, and was succeeded by Ebelmen, a member of the Institute. A worthy successor of Brongniart, he seemed destined to give new prosperity to the manufactory, when he prematurely died on the 31st of March, 1852. Victor Regnault, also a member of the Institute, was then appointed director, and continued at his post until the breaking out of the Franco-German war in 1870; his health then failed him, and he retired into the country, when he was soon afterwards struck in his dearest affections by the death of his young and illustrious son, Henri Regnault, who was killed at Montretout by a Prussian bullet. He then resigned, and was succeeded by Louis Robert, head of the artistic department, who was both a clever artist and a distinguished chemist, and had taken charge of the manufactory during Regnault’s retirement. Robert, who was the son of an official of the manufactory, was first a student, then a painter, and finally the head of the glass painting works established at Sevres by King Louis-Philippe, where, among other remarkable works, the windows of the chapel of Dreux were made from cartoons designed by Ingres, Delacroix, Delaroche, and other distinguished artists. When the glass-staining atelier which rendered such signal services to industry by reviving processes forgotten or disused for centuries, was suppressed, he was appointed by Brongniart superintendent of the porcelain painting studios. When he became director, his acquaintance with the personnel^ and his ^AJ^B PORCELAIN, 145 thorough knowledge of the resources of the manufactory, together with the goodwill of his employh^ made easier the task of re-organisation he had undertaken, and the exhibitions of 1874 (in the Champs-Elysees) and of 1878 (in the Champ de Mars) testified to the vigorous, intelligent, and artistic impulsion he had given to the manufacture, and which was unanimously recognised. He was named honorary director in March, 1879, died on the 13th of January, 1882, deeply regretted by the whole of the staff, for so many years under his direction. His successor was M. Lauth. a chemist, ex-member of the Paris municipal council. Under the scientific direction of Brongniart, the manufactur- ing processes were considerably improved. Vases were then made measuring no less than 2 metres 40 centimetres in height (about 7 feet 10 inches), upon which the able painters of the manufactory reproduced the compositions of the most celebrated artists of that time, which were intended to glorify the chief events of the reign of Napoleon I. A large number of rich and sumptuous table services were also manufactured, as well as life-size busts of the Emperor and the two Empresses, and tables on which were painted the portraits of the marshals, and those of the great captains of antiquity, or views of the imperial palaces. Every piece manufactured at Sevres was intended to commemorate the Emperor’s victories — the borders of plates were ornamented with war-trophies, whilst they bore in the centre battle-scenes painted by Swebach or Georget; “ Triumphal Columns of the Great Army,” table “ surtouts ” composed of triumphal chariots, statues of Fame, and Egyptian monuments were made of porcelain ; and although these works now appear to us old-fashioned, out of taste, and somewhat ridiculous, their execution is, in every respect, beyond praise. Under the Restauratmi, the style of decoration remained almost unchanged, at least during the first years of that govern- ment, and the manufactory continued the making of table services L 146 FRENCH POTTERY. rather overloaded with ornaments, and in which it was sought to represent a whole group of ideas — as, for instance, the Service Encyclop'edique^ or Des Arts Industi'iels.^ the Service IconographiqiLe Antique^ the Service Historiqiie et Topographique des Departemenis, and those called Des Vues hors dEurope., Des Oiseaux d' Amerique., etc. Among the most remarkable productions of that period the following maybe noted : a jewel casket made for the marriage of the Due de Berry, and another known as the Coffret des Tabatieres dit Roi, and a number of tables, clocks, and large vases mostly given as presents to foreign potentates. It was then that were manufactured those rectangular plaques^ measuring i metre and even ij metre in length, real tours de force of manufacturing skill, on which artists of unri- valled ability executed admirable copies of the paintings of great masters, which are the pride of the Sevres manufactory. During the reign of Louis-Philippe the large porcelain pieces, such as vases, tables, clocks, caskets, etc., were overloaded with ornaments sculptured in relief in the artificial and mannered style of the pseudo-Renaissance originated by Chenavard, Fragonard, Clerget, Julienne, and others. Painted decoration, however, was, as formerly, extensively practised, and the services executed during that period are fully as perfect as those made in the preceding reigns. One of the most remarkable of these has, singularly enough, to say the least, been set in, as it were, in the wood panels of a gallery in the Chateau de Fontainebleau, called Galerie des Assiettes. In the year 1852, the shapes and general style of decoration were considerably modified under the able direction of M. Dieterle. The paintings, admirably executed as usual, were no longer made to cover the whole surface of the plates or vases, thus allowing the light to play freely on the pure and clear enamel of the porcelain. Towards 1850, a new element of decoration, devised by Louis Robert, then chief of the painters’ atelier, was introduced HARD PORCELAIN. 147 in the manufactory, and has since effected a considerable change in the ornamentation of porcelain. This process, known under the name of coloured pastes, consisted in the use of porcelain paste to which colouring oxides were added. After a number of long and costly experiments, the manufactory was able to send to the London Exhibition of 1862 a whole set of small cups, on which subjects from La Fontaine’s fables were represented in white paste on a coloured ground, decorated with flowers and ornaments in colours ; these cups, much admired at the time, when the new process was almost a revelation, are now in the Ceramic Museum of Sevres, and will remain as an important document for the history of European ceramic art. But as the colouring oxides were not all of the same fusibility as the paste to which they were added, considerable difficulties were experienced in practice, especially when large pieces were being made. Numerous accidents occurred in the firing — the paste peeled off, contracted, or scaled off ; the pieces were deformed j and, in many instances, a few hours were sufficient to destroy what the artists had been months in preparing. Now, thanks to the persevering efforts, researches, and experi- ments of Alphonse Salvetat, the distinguished chemist of Sevres who died in 1882, it has been possible to establish certain fixed rules, which, though they do not always prevent these frequently recurring accidents, still materially assist in minimising them ; while the accidents which still occur are mainly caused by an injudicious use of the colouring oxides, and soon rectified by practice. Of the various applications of this process, the simplest is that which consists in decorating porcelain with white paste or harhotine on a coloured ground ; the modelling in this case being produced by transparency, according to the thickness of the white paste which covers the ground, and by this means cameo-like effects are produced which are truly remarkable. There were in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 really wonderful L 2 148 FRENCH POTTER Y. examples of this kind of work executed by M. Solon-Miles, who has since left France, and has placed his pure and graceful talent, enhanced by faultless execution, at the service of Messrs. Minton. It is to be regretted that the paste of English porcelain, more opaque than that of Sevres, produces in a much lessened degree the effects of transparency which were obtained at Sevres, and imparted to the decoration a soft and velvety modelling due to the colour of the lower surface. These new decorating processes, like those of painting termed an demi-graiid feu, which give a matchless glaze to vigorous and deep colours, and many others which, being purely technical, cannot be mentioned in this work, have always been communi- cated to all manufacturers, French and foreign, who applied to the manufactory, and made public by the able ‘‘ Traite des Arts Ceramiques,” by Brongniart, the two last editions of which have been annotated and brought to date by Salvetat. Such is really the object of national manufactories, and particularly of the manufactory of Sevres, where most of the improvements made in ceramic industry since the beginning of this century were originally brought out. At the present time, the manufactory ot Sevres is exhibiting at the Palace of the Champs-Elysees a new kind of porcelain with a kaolinic basis, and a soft glaze which admits of enamels being applied to large-sized pieces. This porcelain, which, from the point of view of the decoration, indicates an immense progress, is due to the researches begun as far back as 1850 by Ebelmer and Salvetat, continued towards 1874 by Salvetat alone, and sub- sequently taken up by M. Lauth, assisted by M. Vogt, the head of the chemical department of the manufactory. The marks adopted since the commencement of this century have often varied j we give them in chronological order. The Republican monogram was abandoned in 1800, and the word ‘‘Sevres” alone remained. In 1801 the use of letters or signs IfAJ^D PORCELAIN. 149 indicating the year was resumed according to the following table : T.9. Year IX.. ..1801 j -//- . .. 1805 9.. . 1809 dz 1812 qn.. • 1815 X ,, X.. ..1802 A • .. 1806 10.. . 1810 tz . .. 1813 sz .. . 1816 II „ XL, ..1803 7 .. 1807 oz " . . I8II qz 1814 ds .. . 1817 ..1804 8 . .. 1808 From 1804 to 1809 the following printed mark was added to the above signs : M. Jmp’^ <3e,Sevrf>s -//- {Manufacture imphiale de Sevres — 1805.) but in 1810 the imperial eagle, printed in red and accompanied by the words, Manufacture imperiale — Sevres, was substituted. Under the Restoration the two Us, with the fleur-de-lis, the word Sevres, and the two last figures of the year in the centre, were again used, and that mark was also printed. These letters are abbreviations of the words onzc, oz. (eleven) ; doitze, dz. (twelve) ; and so on. FRENCH POTTERY. 150 During the reign of Charles X., the mark consisted of two interlaced C’s, with or without a fieiii'-de-lis^ over the word “ Sevres j” in 1829 the two C’s were surmounted by the royal crown with the words decore d Sevres ; the pieces, which were gilt only, were marked with one C surmounted by a crown ; the date was in all cases indicated by the two last figures of the year : From 1830 to 1834 a circular seal was used, bearing in the surmounted by the royal crown and accompanied (The pieces intended for the royal residences were marked with a supplementary stamp bearing the name of the residence.) Under the Second Empire, and until the end of the year so 30 centre the word Sevres, from 1834 the monogram surmounted by a star ; of King Louis-Philippe, by the word Sevres and placed in the centre of 34 M the date in full, was the seal. HAJ^jD porcelain. I5I 1854, the mark consisted of the spread-eagle, accompanied by the letter S and the two last figures of the year. The present mark consists of a circular stamp, with a double line bearing in the centre an R and an F interlaced, with the words Lore or dkore d Sevres^ and the date; in 1871 and 1872 the old stamp, bearing the monogram of the French Republic, was used. Since the year 1810 all these marks have been printed on entirely finished pieces, and consequently baked in the muffle-kiln ; it was therefore easy to imitate them, and the forgers who, for the last thirty years especially, have dealt in Sevres porcelain, were not slow in taking advantage of this. In order to prevent fraud a supplementary mark has, since 1848, been printed on the “ biscuit ; ” it is a chrome-green mark capable of standing the heat of the kiln, and which, being under the glaze, cannot possibly be imitated. In the beginning of the year 1848 this mark consisted of the King’s monogram, but it was soon replaced by an oval stamp, which bears sv q|j> 48 . in the centre the letter S and the two last figures of the year in which the piece was manufactured, but not decorated. (fj2) 152 FRENCH POTTERY. If the piece, on coming out of the kiln, is found to have any defect, the following indelible mark is notched by the lathe, which cuts into the enamel : If, on the contrary, the piece is faultless, it is placed in the white porcelain storehouse, where it often remains for many years before being decorated and completely finished ; it is then marked with the printed stamp above referred to. It is therefore not uncommon to see porcelain bearing, for instance, the green mark of 1856, and the supplementary mark, decore d Sevres., R F, 1874. In the year 1878 the Improvement Committee thought it expedient to suppress the green mark as likely to favour fraud, or rather imposition ; but it was soon found that this suppression, far from preventing, rather facilitated fraud, and the green mark was resumed in 1879. The green stamp, when notched., indicates in the most positive manner that the porcelain on which It appears has not been decorated at Sevres, all the supplementary marks notwithstanding ; and therefore all pieces so marked must be rejected as spurmis, in spite of the assertions of a few unscru- pulous dealers who, imposing upon the credulity of their too confident customers, pretend that the marks have been purposely cut into by themselves at the manufactory in order to identify the pieces they had selected. It is difficult to imagine how various are the resources at the ... ! service of the men who deal in pseudo-curiosities, and fhe numerous devices they resort to in order to gain their ends ; fillets, gilding, monograms, even the grounds are transformed or disappear according to the necessities of the triiquage (make-up) as it is called. We give two examples of it in order better to warn our readers against the snares every day laid for them. We have seen in London, in one of the best-frequented shops, a hard porcelain plate, the centre of which was decorated with a pastoral HAJ^D PORCELAIN. 153 subject painted over a gilt monogram, which had been removed by means of chemicals, but the outline of which was still apparent under the painting when held slantingly to the light; the two marks of Sevres were perfect, and the dealer could with impunity assert that the piece was I'eal Sevres porcelain. Yet a thorough knowledge of the marks could in this case and in the absence of further proofs disclose the fraud ; for all painted pieces, i.e. decorated with subject-figures, flowers, landscapes, etc., invariably bear the words decore d Sevres ; whilst the gilt pieces, however elaborate and rich their ornamentation, monograms, coats-of-arms, etc., are marked dore d Sevj'es, as was the plate to which we refer. Another piece we saw in Paris was ornamented with the monogram of King Louis-Philippe surrounded with flowers, as it was painted on the table service of daily use, which was sold after the Revolution of 1848, and the pieces of which were, and are now, eagerly purchased, not on account of their artistic merit, but because of the value set upon them by faithful Royalists.* That piece was marked under the glaze with the green stamp S, 74 (Sevres, 1874), In this case the fraud was very clumsy, yet the dealer found a purchaser who paid for the porcelain a comparatively exorbitant price. These two instances are sufficient to show what careful at- tention is required before purchasing the porcelain sold daily in England, and especially in America, as having been manufactured at Sevres. We must add that so long as the French Government shall refuse to extend to the productions and marks of its own manufactory the protection it grants to the productions and marks of private industry, and shall not take the necessary steps to pro- secute and severely punish the forgers and imitators, the trade we have alluded to will subsist, and the exportation of spurious Sevres porcelain will increase yearly, not to mention the imitations daily manufactured abroad. * The same thing occurred when, after 1871, the Imperial porcelain was sold. CHAPTER XII. Hard Porcelain. — Secondary Ma 7 iuf actor ies. The result of the discovery of the kaolin of Alengon and St. Yrieix was that explorations were made throughout France, and, as kaolin was found in several provinces, manufactories were rapidly established in all parts of the country. Following the example set by the King, all the princes, grands seigneurs^ and even the Queen were anxious to possess, or at least to patronise, a porcelain manufactory. All those establishments, directly or indirectly, were imitating Sevres, whose manufacturing processes they adopted, and whose shapes and decorative patterns they copied. Most of the foreign porcelain manufactories did the same, and paid large salaries to the best workmen and decorators of Sevres, whom they engaged. We will now mention in chronological order the manufactories which were established in Paris. Paris : Manufactory of the Faubourg St. Lazare {subsequently Faubourg St. Fefiis). — This manufactory was founded towards 1772 by Pierre Hannong, who, as we have already stated, had offered to sell to the manufactory of Sevres the secret of making hard porcelain. The first productions of this manufactory resembled those of Frankenthal, where Hannong had been employed under his father ; it was at a later date patronised by Charles-Philippe, Comte d’Artois (who became Charles X.), brother of Louis XVI., when it produced works of a more French style, and, as a rule, very carefully decorated. HARD PORCELAIN. 155 The porcelain of the first period is marked with Hannong’s initial, - which was soon replaced by the initials of the Comte d’ Artois, surmounted by the prince’s crown, and some- times, but very seldom, by the royal crown. •y Cl^- Manufactory de la Courtille.^ Rue Fontaine au Roi. — This manufactory, founded in the early part of the year 1773 by Jean Baptiste Locre, originally sought to imitate German porcelain ; indeed, it was at one time known under the name of Manifacture de Porcelaine AUenia 7 ide^'‘ and, in order more closely to imitate the celebrated manufactory of Meissen, adopted as its mark two crossed torches, recalling the two swords of Saxony. This mark was subsequently transformed, and two ears of corn were substituted, which, although clearly designed, might still lead to confusion. Towards the year 1784, Locre entered into partnership with Russinger, who ultimately became the sole proprietor of the manu- factory. The works it produced under the original direction of Locre are extremely remarkable. Mamfactory of Clignancourt. — This establishment was started towards the year 1775, by a skilful man named Pierre Deruelle, FRENCH POTTERY, 156 who soon obtained the patronage of Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Comte de Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII.), brother of the King. The porcelain of Clignancourt is certainly the most perfect that was made in all the Parisian manufactories of that period (Nos. 633, 634, and 636-53 in the Museum). The privileges granted to the manufactory of Sevres included the exclusive right of using gold for the decoration of porcelain ; but the private FIG. 47. CREAM JUG, DE LA COURTILLE PORCELAIN. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. manufactories, and particularly the establishments patronised by princes of the royal blood, did not hesitate to infringe that rule, and, besides using gold for decoration, they copied the shapes, the patterns, and even the marks of Sevres. The porcelain of Clignancourt was originally marked with a windmill, coarsely sketched in blue under the glaze — an allusion to the numerous windmills to be found on the Montmartre hill, where the village of Clignancourt was situated. At a later date, when the Comte de Provence — or Moiisieur,^ as the King’s brother was then called — became patron of the new PORCELAIN. 157 establishment, the windmill was replaced by his monogram, com- posed of the letters L S X (Louis-Stanislas-Xavier), interlaced, and sometimes surmounted by the prince’s crown (this mark is stencilled, and is generally illegible), or oftener by an M and a crown. At one time it was attempted to imitate the mark of Sevres (two interlaced L’s) with the prince’s crown instead of the royal crown ; but the director of the royal manufactory took immediate steps to prohibit the use of that mark, which amounted to forgery, and the pieces marked with it are extremely scarce. FIG. 4S. CUP, ‘'PORCELAINE A LA REINE.” GASNAULT COLLECTION. Maraifactory of the Porcelaine a la Relief Rue Thiroux . — The porcelain manufactured at this establishment, founded in 1778 by Andre-Marie Leboeuf, is often as perfect as that of Clignancourt. Every style of decoration was executed in this FRENCH POTTERY. 158 important manufactory, graciously patronised by Marie- Antoinette. One of the simplest and most charming kinds of decoration was the pattern known as the decor d barbeaiix^' which consisted of delicately-painted corn-flowers (barbeaux). The porcelain made at the manufactory of the Rue Thiroux was, and is now, called porcelaine d la rehiep^ it is marked with the initial of Marie-Antoinette, surmounted by the royal crown (sometimes, but very seldom, the crown is omitted). In the early part of this century this manufactory belonged to two partners, Guy and Housel, who marked their ware with their initials, and the name of the street in full, thus : Kne Thiroii a Paj'15 Manufactory of the Rue de Bondy, termed du due df Aiigouleme . — This manufactory, started towards 1780, is one of those in which, at the close of the last, and in the early part of this century, porcelain was most skilfully manufactured and decorated. It soon acquired considerable importance, and was for a long time very prosperous, owing to the ability and intelligence of the two founders, Guerhard and Dihl. The porcelain of this manu- factory has been, and is now, often erroneously called in England ‘‘ Porcelaine dl Angoulemef the correct term is “ Porcelame du Due d’Angouteme.” Before the Revolution its productions were marked with a HAJ^n PORCELAIN. 159 red oval stamp, bearing the cipher of the Due d’Angouleme, and surmounted by the prince’s crown. After the overthrow of the monarchy another mark was substituted, which consisted of the name of the firm in full, MF de Guerhard et Dihl. and which was replaced by the following mark at the time of the Restoration. Manufag de MGR le Due d’angouleme a Paris The last-mentioned mark is to be seen on a cup in the Museum (No. 3418-53). One of the most important and beautiful pieces of this manufactory is the fine vase in the Museum (No. 309-76), representing “ The Abduction of the Sabine Women.” Dihl was an able chemist, and his discoveries were instru- mental in giving painters a more varied palette. His portrait, painted by Drdlling, in the Sevres Museum, is an admirable work in every respect, and was, so to speak, the prelude to the copies of paintings by old masters, which were to be executed some years later under the direction of Brongniart. Manufactory termed Due d’’ Orleans f or du Pont-aux- Choux . — This manufactory, originally established towards 1784, in the Rue des Boulets, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, was soon transferred to the Rue Amelot, in the Pont-aux-Choux quarter. It was then patronised by Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Due d’Orleans, and its porcelain was marked with the prince’s cipher. i6o FRENCH POTTERY, but from the year 1793 this mark was replaced by the following indication : Manufactory of the Rue Popincourt^ subsequently transferred to the Rice des Amandiers. — The productions of this establish- ment, originally owned and managed by Nast, who was succeeded by his two sons, are not very remarkable. The porcelain is marked in red. Manufactory,, termed du Prince de Gatles, Rue de Crussol . — We will bring this list to a close with the mention of this manufactory, founded by an Englishman of the name of Potter, who signed his productions with his name in full, accompanied by letters and reference numbers : Potter was the first (in Paris) to manufacture fine faience {cail- loutages) after the style of the English faience of Leeds and other places. All the manufactories we have mentioned in the preceding pages used to manufacture and decorate their wares ; but in the early part of this century the Parisian industry, at least so far as the manufacture of porcelain was concerned, was ruined by the competition of provincial manufactories, chiefly the Limoges potteries, which had no carriage to pay for their kaolin, and obtained their fuel at much lower prices. Paris only retained the monopoly of the decoration of the porcelain made in the provinces, and marked only with the name of the retail houses Fabrique du Pont-aux-Choux. 3 JPotlc-'r IfJjRD PORCELAIN, i6i for which it was manufactured, without any other sign to indicate the place of origin. The decoration was executed by contractors named chambrelans^ so called because they worked in their own dwellings, chmiibres. A large quantity of porcelain manufactured in the provinces has thus erroneously been attributed to Parisian manufacturers ; but this porcelain is very uninteresting, and we do not think it necessary to mention the marks it bears, as this information is of no importance in the history of French industry. But, in the meantime, the provinces had not been slow in following the example so energetically set by Paris j and in a short time a large number of manufactories were established through- out the country, the most important of which we will now mention in the chronological order we have hitherto endeavoured to follow. Niederwiller . — This important manufactory, whose history we have sketched when dealing with the remarkable faience it pro- duced, had, in addition, manufactured hard porcelain made of German kaolin, as perfectly executed and delicately and tastefully decorated as the faience to which we have referred. Under the direction of the Baron de Beyerle, from 1768 to 1780, the Niederwiller porcelain was marked with an N, and sometimes, in the case of important pieces, with Beyerle’s monogram, During the period of General Count de Custine’s ownership, which extended until 1793, the porcelain and the faience manu- factured at Niederwiller, were marked with two C’s, sometimes surmounted by a crown. vJVW M i 62 FRENCH POTTERY. (Care must be taken not to confound this mark with that of the Louisburg porcelain in Wurtemberg, which also consists of two C’s, but surmounted by a royal crown.) When, at the time of the Revolution, Lanfrey, the former manager, became proprietor of the manufactory, he marked his productions with his monogram stencilled in blue or red. To this last period may be referred the four pretty statuettes in biscuit porcelain in the Museum numbered 385, 386, 387, and 388-74. Marseilles . — Joseph Robert, a faience-maker of Marseilles whom we have already mentioned, also manufactured porcelain in addition to faience, and his porcelain, which is remarkably well made, is decorated with sea-pieces generally painted in camcCieii., and chiefly with flowers and polychrome bouquets, rather soft in tone, but invariably executed with great care and perfect taste. He marked his porcelain in blue, under the outer glaze, with the following cipher : Honore Savy and the widow Perrin also intended to manu- facture porcelain, and obtained the necessary authorisation ; but we are not aware whether they really did so, and we do not know of any piece that can be attributed to them. Limoges . — The industry of porcelain-making, which was to become so important at Limoges, was a long time before being firmly rooted in that town ; and, in spite of the proximity of the beds of kaolin of Saint-Yrieix, there were only two porcelain PORCELAIN. 163 manufactories at Limoges at the close of the eighteenth century. One of these, founded in 1779, was purchased in 1784 by the manufactory of Sevres, to be used as a branch establishment ; but this arrangement, having been found most inconvenient, it was soon re-sold. We do not believe that decoration was practised at Limoges, for, as above stated, all the porcelain manufactured there was sent to Paris in order to be painted. It is, moreover, not remarkable, and is marked a mark the origin and meaning of which we do not know. La Seinie Vienne). — This manufactory, established near Saint-Yrieix towards the year 1774 by the Marquis de St. Aulaire and the Comte de la Seinie, seems to have been chiefly intended to supply prepared paste to other manufactories, and to manu- facture white porcelain, which was sent to the Parisian retail dealers, who gave it to the chambrelans to be decorated. It nevertheless produced boldly-painted porcelain, marked with an L and an S, either interlaced or separately painted. Lille. — This was one of the most important establishments in the provinces, and produced well-manufactured and carefully- decorated porcelain. The director was Leperre-Durot, an able chemist, who was the first to employ coal as a fuel for baking porcelain (there is in the Museum of Sevres a saucer bearing the following inscription ; “ Fait a Lille en Fla 7 idre., cult ait charhon de terre, 1785”), and who tried to apply translucent enamel to the glaze of hard porcelain. M. de Calonne, Lnleiidant de Flandre, took an interest in these experiments, and obtained for the manufactory the patronage of the Dauphin, son of Louis XVI. M 2 164 FRENCH POTTERY. The porcelain of Lille was at first marked with the name of the town in full, or simply the letter L ; it was subsequently marked with a crowned dolphin, traced with the brush or stencilled, with or without the letter L. Valenciennes . — Founded in the year 1785 by Fauquez, who soon after sold it to his brother-in-law, Lamoninary, this manu- factory became rapidly very important. The Valenciennes porcelain is extremely remarkable in every respect, and some pieces are equal to the most perfect works of the end of the eighteenth century — as, for instance, the “ biscuit ” statuettes and groups, which bear in full the word ‘‘Valenciennes,” or the abbre-^ viated form, “ Valencien.” Most of the usual porcelain is marked with Lamoninary’s initial and an inverted V. The delightful terra-cotta objects so delicately and finely modelled — one might almost say carved — signed “J. M. Renaud,” were also made at Valenciennes, and probably at the porcelain manufactory. There are in the Museum of Limoges two snuff- boxes, whose covers consist of terra-cotta plaques set in a gold mounting and covered with glass, which are true artistic master- pieces. Orleans .— were at Orleans two manufactories of some importance, where remarkable porcelain and very coarse articles of common use were manufactured at the same time. The first, HAJ^B PORCELAIN, 165 under the direction of Ge'rault, had adopted as a mark a label sometimes accompanied by a fleur-de-lis. On the best pieces this mark is traced in red or even in gold, whilst it is blue on the more common pieces. After the Revolution stencils were used, with the word Orleans in full, and subsequently a circular stamp was substituted : FIG. 49. cur, ORLEANS PORCELAIN. GASNAULT COLLECTION. Choisy-le-Roi . — The porcelain of this manufactory, founded in 1785 by Clement, is not very remarkable ; it bears the following stencil lead mark : & tk & i66 FRENCH POTTERY. Caen . — The manufactory of Caen, started by a joint-stock company in 1798, was rather short-lived, notwithstanding the con- siderable importance it acquired at the outset, and its endeavours to produce artistic porcelain. Some of its productions are remarkable chiefly for excellence of workmanship, and are distinguishable by a rather peculiar yellow ground, on which bouquets, garlands, and true-love knots are painted ; the mark consists of the word caen, stencilled. CHAPTER XIII. FRENCH CERAMICS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Almost every progress realised in French ceramics for the last hundred years is due to the manufactory of Sevres, and the influence exercised by that celebrated establishment on the manufacture of porcelain, not only as regards the manufacturing processes, but also in respect of the shapes and decoration, is incontestable. For the object of national manufactories is to assist and set an example to private industry, without ever competing with it. Being in a better position to secure the assistance of eminent artists and distinguished scientists ; liberally subsidised enough to undertake costly experiments, the result of which is often doubtful, it behoves them to open up the way for private industry. The Sevres manufactory has never failed to do so ; it has always — and more particularly under the direction of the illustrious Brongniart — followed the pure precepts of true art, and guided the public taste without being misled by it, and its superiority over the similar establishments to be found in other countries has been universally acknowledged. During that long period it was for the manufacturers of France a school of the greatest practical value on account of the works it produced, of its museum, and of the labours and researches of its scientific staff recorded in the “ Traite des Arts Ceramiques ’’ by Brongniart, a work which crowned his long and laborious life. The manufacture and decoration of porcelain in the nume- rous manufactories established in all parts of the country at the i68 FRENCH POTTERY. commencement of this century, chiefly at Limoges and in the centre of France, were carried on after the example set by Sevres. But, besides the improvements introduced in the manufacture of porcelain, there are others that cannot be passed over, some of which were of real importance. Such is the introduction into France of the fine earthenware or fdie?ices fines, also known under the name of terres-de-pipe and cailloutages. The improvements made in this industry originated almost exclusively in England; the manufacture of French earthen- ware imported into Paris by Potter, as above stated, was soon imitated at the manufactories established at Choisy-le-Roi, Creil, Montereau, Chantilly, and Sarreguemines. At the outset the productions of these various establishments were sufficiently good, chiefly those of Montereau, where the manufacture was super- intended by an Englishman named Hall ; but they very soon became so defective, mediocre, and coarse, as to be practically useless. For the sake of injudicious economy, and in order to keep up competition by lowering the prices, the pieces were not sufficiently baked, whilst the glaze was so soft that it was scratched by the slightest touch. This kind of pottery fell into disrepute, and the manufacture seemed on the point of being altogether discontinued, when a scientist, M. de St. Amans, who had spent many years of his life in England, where he had gained a knowledge of the manufacture of earthenware in all its details as practised in Staffordshire, under- took to save this industry from ruin. Here again the influence of Brongniart was felt ; he did aU in his power to encourage the attempts and experiments made by M. de St. Amans, and placed at his disposal the ovens and the resources of the Sevres manu- factory. In a short time the manufacture was resumed, first at Montereau, and next at Creil, with growing and continued success. The printing processes introduced into France at the end of the last century were not regularly employed before 1802, when Potter and his son made use of them, and they were not exten- CERAMICS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY. 169 sively practised until about 1816-1822, when M. de St. Amans made known in all their details the various English processes. Experiments for printing in colours on porcelain had been made at Paris in 1809 by Neppel, and the process was improved first by Mery of Choisy-le-Roi, who had applied it to all kinds of pottery, and then by the brothers Paillard, also of Choisy. At the same time, Legros d’Anisy, and, later, Honore at Paris (Nos. 476, 477, 478-44), employed lithographic stones for decorating earthenware and porcelain. A new decorating process deserving notice was that termed emaux ojnhrants, or shading enamel, applied to pottery towards 1844 by the Baron du Tremblay at the manufactory he had established at Rubefies, near Melun. This process, by means of which a soft and harmonious decoration was obtained, and which has lately been revived, especially abroad, was the follow- ing ; An image was impressed on the paste of the piece to be decorated — the counterpart, as it were, of a bas-relief; then, after a first firing, the piece was covered with a translucent and easily fusible glaze, variously coloured green, blue, or violet, by oxide of copper, cobalt, or manganese. When fused by firing, this glaze produced a perfectly smooth external surface ; but the hollow parts, owing to the greater thickness of the glaze, gave powerful shadows, whilst the raised portions were lighter in colour, and contributed to the general decorative effect. It is a counter- part of the ‘Hithophany” pictures made in Saxony, in Russia, and chiefly at Berlin, but with the addition of enamel. Notwith- standing its excessive cheapness and truly artistic character, this kind of pottery had but the success of a day ; for table services it was almost useless, the enamel being too soft and too easily scratched, and, on the other hand, it was not sufficiently hard for decorative purposes. We have nevertheless thought it interesting to mention this process on account of its novelty, and because it may ultimately give more satisfactory results. Equally interesting were the attempts made at Voisinlieu, 170 FRENCH POTTERY. near Beauvais, towards 1840, with a view to restore to the manufacture of stoneware its former artistic character. A painter of acknowledged merit, and a pupil of Ingres, Claude Louis Zie'gler, having been compelled through impaired eyesight to relinquish the practice of an art to which he had devoted a part of his life, entered into partnership with a stoneware manu- facturer, and gave a truly artistic direction to the establishment he had founded. The stoneware manufactured by him, and for which he supplied the models, is remarkable for the purity of the forms and the style of the decoration, as well as for the fineness of the paste and excellence of workmanship. One of his finest works is the large vase called Vase des Apotres., the cover of which supports a figure of Christ in the round, whilst the sides of the vase are ornamented with figures in relief representing the twelve Apostles ; this vase, severely conceived and executed, may justly be considered as one of the best productions of modern ceramic art. The salt glaze of this piece has a uniformly brown colour. Ziegler also made stoneware ornamented with polychrome enamels, copied, or rather imitated, from the stoneware of the sixteenth century ; but it was inferior to his first productions. After his retirement, the manufactory he had founded ceased to produce artistic pottery, and finally disappeared in 1854. The great literary current which, during the first years of Louis-Philippe’s reign, had awakened an interest in the works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, together with the establish- ment of the Museum of Sevres, which drew public attention to ancient pottery, gave birth to a sort of Renaissance of the potter’s art. In the year 1842 a modest potter of Tours, Charles Avisseau, a talented artist and an indefatigable worker, at- tempted to revive the making of artistic faience by endeavouring to copy Palissy’s finest works. His efforts were crowned with success, and in a short time he was able to show reptile and insect ipestioles) dishes, which were very nearly equal to those of CERAMICS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY. 17 1 the celebrated potter of Saintes. His example was rapidly- followed, not only at Tours, where his son and his nephew Landais continued the manufacture (there are in the Museum four pieces by the latter of considerable merit, numbered 2815, 3 ^ 75 j 3676, 5677-56), but also at Paris, where Barbizet, in 1850, and Pull, in 1855 (Nos. 1782-69, 1080, and 1081-71) in their turn imitated the Palissy ware. The movement was kept up ; faience again became fashionable, and numerous manufactories were established. An Italian, Joseph Devers — who, in 1847, had already endeavoured to revive the old processes of the potters of Urbino and Faenza, and who, in 1849 at Paris, and in 1851 at London, had obtained medals — started, in 1853, a small manufactory, where he specially produced decorative faience, imitated from the bas-reliefs of della-Robbia, terra-cotta, medallions, and painted friezes, etc. etc. (Nos. 23-64 and 706-69). The manufactory of Sevres then took the lead, and in 1854 a special atelier was established for the making of stanniferous - enamelled artistic faience, glazed pottery, and terra-cotta (Nos. 2687-56, 8060-62, 8075-62, 9 and 10-65, etc. etc.). It produced in these various kinds of pottery very remarkable works, such as large basins, garden-vases, decorative dishes, and ewers ; but its chief merit was to determine clearly the various manufacturing, enamelling, and baking processes, thus rendering great services to private industry. Since 1871 the manufacture of faience has been discontinued at Sevres for financial motives, as has also the making of enamels on metal, an art practised by artists of immense talent, such as M. Gobert, who were able to revive the finest productions of Leonard Limosin, Penicaud, and Reymond. We may also mention amongst the faience-makers who were then becoming famous, Aug. Jean (formerly a porcelain painter), whose productions were original ; another Italian artist, Ristori, who in 1854 started at Nevers a manufactory where he produced admirably executed pieces in imitation of the old faience, with 72 FRENCH POTTERY, white or yellow decorations on Persian blue ground (Nos. 3673 to 3670-56 ; the last-mentioned piece is particularly remarkable), to which was due the former repute of the potters of Nevers; Collinot, at whose manufactory in the Parc des Princes (Bois de Boulogne) faience articles and enamelled wall-tiles ornamented with Persian and Japanese designs of pure style and admirable workmanship were manufactured under the artistic direction of Adalbert de Beaumont (Nos. 701-69, 945-69, 742-69, etc.) ; and, lastly, Theodore Deck, the potter of pure and delicate taste who is so thorough a master of his art. Since the time when, in 1859, in partnership with his brother, he founded a manufactory of artistic pottery in the Impasse des Favorites in Paris, M. Deck has remained the first ceramic artist of the time, and French industry is proud of him as being one of its most justly-honoured representatives. M. Deck has confronted and overcome all difficulties, and the numerous works by him in the Museum hardly give an idea of the various applications of colours and enamels made by this skilful ceramist to pieces of perfect workmanship and of a purity of form beyond praise. He has made imitations — not servile copies — of the Persian faience of golden and pearly hue, or decorated with that splendid carnation-red, the secret of which seemed to be known only to the potters of the East (Nos. 17-65, 699-78, 705-69); he has rediscovered the celadon or turquoise grounds, and the harmonious blue decoration of Chinese and Japanese pottery (Nos. 1784-69, 697 and 698-78), and the delicate niello and inlaid work of the ware of Oiron (Nos. 7883- 62, and 18-65) i has revived the Italian maiolica (No. 1783-69) and the apparently intricate but really very simple designs of Arabian and Hispano-Moresque pottery (No. 18-65); and, lastly, with the help of artists like Hamon (No. 8044-62), Raunvier (Nos. 16-65, 25-65, 1102-68), Anker (No. 632-70), Collin, Reiber, Legrain, Mdme. Escallier, and others, he has elaborated a style which is his own, and the faience signed by him can com- CERAMICS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY. 173 pare, and be placed on a par, with the finest productions of the ceramic art of all times. This great artistic revival met with encouragement from all quarters, and was assisted in every possible way. A number of intelligent commercial men reverted to the old system of the Parisian dealers, and ordered from the porcelain or faience manu- facturers services or vases for which they supplied the models and shapes, and the costly decoration of which they entrusted to distinguished painters, whose talent and ability were better known to them than to the manufacturers. They thus raised the decora- tion of pottery in common use to a higher level, and the manufac- turers soon followed their example. M. Rousseau, of Paris, is certainly one of those who exercised the greatest influence in this direction, for it was he who entrusted to an artist gifted with great originality, M. Bracquemond, the decoration of a service which will remain as a model of what the fanciful imitation of the Japanese ornamentation as applied to ceramics should be (No. 699-69), and he also was the first to encourage the debuts of M. Solon-Miles, whose name we have already mentioned. Again, enlightened amateurs and enthusiastic collectors did all in their power to promote the revival of their favourite art by organising retrospective exhibitions, to which they graciously lent the treasures of art they possessed ; or in assisting with their influence, and often with their purse, in the foundation of indus- trial schools where the decoration of ceramic productions was the chief study, or of museums which were to diffuse knowledge in the great industrial centres. Among the former were Riocreux, the learned and lamented keeper of the Sevres Museum; Albert Jacquemart, author of “Les Merveilles de la Ceramique;’' Andre Pettier, the founder of the Museum of Rouen, etc. etc. \ and among the latter Adrien Dubouche, a noble-hearted and highly-intelligent man, whose recent loss was keenly felt in France and in England, and who may justly be considered as one of the most zealous and devoted 174 FRENCH POTTERY. patrons of French industry. He has founded at Limoges a model museum which, in many respects, is equal to that of Sevres, and for which he spent every year considerable sums, as well as a school of decorative art, now under the direction of M. Louvrier de Lajolais, for the training of a pleiad of decorators and skilful artists, some of whom have already exhibited very promising works which augur well for the future. Schools had already been estab- lished in Paris, where young girls were taught to decorate porcelain and faience, and whose pupils have produced works of considerable merit (Nos. 712 to 716-69, 1036, 1037, and 1038-69, 1788 to 1790-69); but the school of Limoges, situated in the centre of a manufacturing district, will certainly give much better results. Lastly, we have to mention, almost as a thing of the past, the manufactory of Gien, where nothing but common faience is now manufactured ; but where, when it was first established, towards 1864, the proprietors, by an intelligent application to fine earthen- ware of the processes of polychrome printing, had succeeded in producing varied and interesting works of artistic appearance, notwithstanding the dryness of the decorating process (Nos. 1432 to 1439-70). In the preceding pages we have endeavoured to give an historical account of the progress of the ceramic art of France down to the present time. A study of the productions of the existing porcelain and faience manufactories would imply con- siderations which are beyond the scope of this work and foreign to the object we have in view. We must, however, note the considerable development recently taken in France by the manufacture of decorative pottery. The advocacy of polychrome decoration by architects like M. Charles Gamier and M. Sedille, has given great impetus to the manufacture of ornamental pottery, and the large decorative panels contributed to the Paris Exhibition of 1878 by M. Deck, or M. Boulanger of Choisy-le-Roi, were much remarked, whilst CERAMICS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY. 175 the ornamental and beautifully executed terra-cotta works sent by M. Labnitz of Paris were universally admired. Since then poly- chrome decoration has made great strides, and there is a growing tendency to utilise it for architectural purposes in private houses ; and elegant constructions in which enamelled pottery, rich and brilliant in tone, flatters the eye and relieves the monotonous gray tint of the stone, are now being built in all parts of France, from the environs of Paris to the shores of the Mediterranean and the coast of Normandy. We must also call attention to a dangerous tendency against which we have repeatedly protested during the last few years, and which happily is disappearing ; for some time, in order to gratify the general taste for novelty, odd shapes, nameless vases, and extraordinary-looking jai'dmieres have been made and covered at random with decorative designs altogether inappropriate to the shape and destination of the pieces. Thus the portraits of political men were painted on dishes, and their features out- rageously distorted ; landscapes, pseudo-mediseval cities, complete farm-yards were winding round the sides of vases in utter disregard of the shapes and projections. Coloured barbotine, so indiscrimi- nately used, and which, in certain cases only, and when handled by skilful artists, can give satisfactory results, has too often been used to imitate oil-painting on enamelled pottery. This was, from an artistic point of view, an absurdity which it was necessary to oppose, and the manufacturers have fortunately understood it. At all times, and in all countries, with a few exceptions, potters were decorators and not painters, and they have always had sense enough not to tax beyond measure the resources of their art. The field open to ceramic art is so large, and its resources are so great, that it has no need to borrow from arts which are inferior to it in many respects. . ■ ' 1C V. INDEX. PAGE Abaquesne, Masseot 9, 10, 23, 46 Ancy-le- Franc, faience manu- factory at . . . *45 Angouleme, Due d’ (manufac- tory of the) . . . .158 Anker 172 Aprey, faience manufactory at 92 ,, mark . . . .92 Apt . . . .96, loi ,, faience manufactory at . 96 ,, mark .... loi Arezzo ..... 2 Arnoux, Widow . . .101 ,, mark of . . . loi Arras, porcelain manufactory at 114 ,, mark . . . .114 Arretium .... 2 Aubry, M. . . . .89 Auxerre, faience manufactory at 45 Avignon, faience manufactory at 31 Avisseau, Charles . . .170 Avon . . . . 30, 31 ,, faience manufactory at . 30 “Azure pottery ” . . • 31 Bachelier . . .119, 122 Barbarino {see also Forasassi) , 96 Barbin 112 Barbizet . . . . .171 “Barbotine”. . 6, 147, 175 Bayard & Boyer . . .89 Beaumont, Adalbert de . .172 Beauvais PAGE • 5 Bellevue. 88, 90, 91 , , faience manufactory at 88 Berain . • 49, 74 Bernart, Jehan • 13 Beyerle, Jean Louis de 85, 86, 161 J ) S 5 mark of. 86, 161 Beyerle, Madame de . . 85 Blanc, Charles . 25 Bcettger . . 105, 107 Boileau . 122, 124, 125 Bordeaux 96, 97, 99 ,, faience manufactory at 96 Borelly, Jacques • 93 Borne, Claude 62 Boucher . . 123, 130 Boulanger „ 174 Boulle . . 74 Bourg-la-Reine, porcelain manu- factory at . 113 Bourg-la-Reine, mark of . 113 Bourgouin . 97 Boussemaert, Fran9ois . 69, 70 9> 5 5 mark of 70 Bracquemond, M. . • 173 B rancas- Lauraguais, Count de 125 Brio", Fran9ois 28, 30 Brongniart, Alexandre 41, 128, 130, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 148, o^ 00 Brussels . • 97 Busch . 124 N 178 INDEX, PAGE Cabaret, Antoine . . *95 Caen, porcelain manufactory at 166 Callot 75 Caussy, Pierre . . .68 Chambery, museum at . .2 Chambon . . . .92 “ Chambrelans ” . 140, l6l, 163 Chambrette, Jacques . . 88 Chantilly . 103, ill, 112, 168 ,, porcelain manufactory at 1 1 1 ,, mark of . . .112 Chapelle . . . -95 Charpentier, Fran9ois . • 13 Chateau de Chantilly . . 8 Chateau d’Ecouen . 8, 9, 26, 46 Chateau de Fontainebleau . 146 Chenavard . . . .146 Chevreul, M. ... 27 Chicanneau . . 66, 108, no Choisy-le-Roi . . 165, 168, 174 ,5 porcelain manufac- tory at . 165 ,, mark of . 165 Cirou, Ciquaire . 112 Clement. . 165 Clerget .... . 146 Clerissy, or Clericy, Pierre 72, 73 Clermont-Ferrand, faience manufactory at . . 78 Clignancourt (Paris), porcelain manufactory at • 155 Clodion .... 9 h 130 Cluny, Musee de 10, 99 Coal, first used as fuel for baking porcelain . 163 Collin . 172 Collinot . . 172 “ Coloured pastes ”. . 147 Conrade, Antoine . . . 38 ,, Brothers . 38, 39 , 45 ,, Dominique . . 38 Coudray, Barbe . . no Courtille (Paris), porcelain manu- factory of La . 155 ,, marks of. . .155 Creil, manufactory at . .168 Custine, Count de . PAGE 86, 87, 161 ,, mark of . 87, 161 Custode (of Rouen) . 47 ,, Brothers . . 39 , 47 ,, Pierre . 39 Cyfide, Paul . 88, 89, 90, 91 ,, mark of . 91 Darnet .... . 125 Deck, Theodore 172, 174 Decorators. Marks and mono- grams of the painters. “de- corators,” and gilders of the manufactory of Sevres, from 1753 to 1800 135-139 Delacroix . 144 Delaporte, the “ Abbe ” . . 72 Delaroche . 144 Delft . . . . . 69 Delorme, Philibert . . 9 Deruelle, Pierre . 155 Desnos, Odolant . 125 Desportes . 130 Desvres, faience manufactory at 99 Devers, Joseph . 171 Dieterle, M. . . 146 Digne . . . . - 65 Dihl . . . . 158, 159 Dorez, Barthelemy . . no Drolling. • 159 Dubois, Brothers . 116, 117 Dubouche, Adrien . • 173 Due d’Angouleme, porcelain manufactory termed {see Rue de Bondy) . . 158 Due d’Orleans (Paris), porcelain manufactory of the . 159 Due d’Orleans (Paris), mark of 159 Ducerceau, Androuet . 9 Duplessis . 119 Ebelmen 144, 148 “ Emaux ombrants ” . 169 Escallier, Mdme. . . 127 INDEX, 179 PAGE Faenza . 10, ii, 33, 35, 38, 171 Falconet . . . 122, 130 Faubourg St. Lazare (Paris), porcelain manufactory of the 1 54 Faubourg St. Lazare (Paris), marks of . . . • ^55 Fauquez, Pierre . . 99, 164 ,, marks of . 99 Feburier, or Febvrier, Jacques . 69 “ Fermes ” 117 Fillon, Benjamin 12 Florence 96 Forasassi, Jean {see also Barba- rino) . 96 Fougeray, M. 68 Foulque, Joseph 72 Fouqueray, Nicolas 60 Fragonard 146 Francesco 10 Frankenthal . . 80, 154 Frasnay, Pierre de . 44 Fulvy, Orry de 116, 117, 118, 1 19, 120, 121 Gambin, Julien ,, Scipion Gamier, Charles Gauthier, Leonard Genest . Georget . Gerardmer, faience manufactory at Gerault . Gien, faience manufactory at . Gilders. Marks and monograms of the painters, decorators, and “gilders” of the manu- factory of Sevres, from 1753 to 1800 . . . 135 Glass painting at Sevres . Glaze of soft porcelain, compo sition of . . . Glot, Richard Gobert, M. . Gonzague, Louis cl e Gosselin, M. . 10, 33 33 , 34 . 178 • 30 , 122 • 145 lOI 165 174 -139 144 121 95 T7I 33 9 PAGE Gouffier, Arthur 12, 14 ,, Claude • 13 ,, Guillaume . 16 Gravant .... 1 16, 1 19 Guerhard . 158 ,, et Dihl, mark of • 159 Guibal .... . 89 Guillebaud • 55 Guy & Housel . 158 ,, mark of . . 158 Haguenau 79, 81 5, faience manufactory at ■ 79 Haly .... • 45 Hamon .... . 172 Hangest, Helene de 12, 13, 14 Hannong, Charles . 79, 80 ,, Joseph . 80, 85 ,, ,, mark of . 85 ,, Paul . 80, 84, 85 ,, ,, mark of . 84 ,, Pierre 80, 125, 154, 155 ,, ,, mark of • 155 Hard porcelain . 103 Hellot . . 1 17, 1 19, 125 Henri-Deux ware {see Oiron ware). Herouard . . . -30 Hettlinger . . . .128 Hirschvogel . . . -23 Honore ..... 169 Hustin 97 Imitations of Sevres porcelain. Ingres .... 140, 141 90, 170 Islettes .... • 91 Jacquemart, Albert • 173 Jarry .... . 92 Jean, Aug. • 171 Jones Collection, porcelain in, Julienne .... 130, 133 146 INDEX. I So PAGE Kaolin ..... 103 ,, first discovered in France 125 Keller, Sebastien . . .88 Labnitz, M. . . . *175 Laborde, L. de . . 5, 103 La Chapelle-aux-Pots, faience manufactory at . . • 31 La Charite, faience manufac- tory at . . . -45 La Foret, faience manufactory at 78 La Hubaudiere et Cie., mark of 69 Lamoninary . . . .164 ,, mark of . . 164 Landais . . . . • 171 Lanfrey, Fran9ois . . 86, 162 ,, mark of . . . 162 La Rue 130 La Seinie, Comte de . -163 ,, porcelain manufac- tory at 163 ,, mark of 163 Lauth, M. . 148 Leboeuf, Andre-Marie 157 Lefran5ois 89 Legrain .... 172 Legros d’Anisy 169 Leleu .... 62 Lelong, Nicolas 91 Lemire {see also Sauvage) 87 Leperre-Durot 163 Levasseur 60 Levavasseur . 92 Lille . 63, 69, 70, no. ^63, 164 , , faience manufactory at . 69 ,, porcelain manufactory at no ,, mark on porcelain . .164 Limoges, Musee Adrien Du- bouche at . 104, 106 ,, porcelain manufactory at . . . 162 ,, mark on porcelain . 163 ,, school at . . .174 Limosin, Leonard . . .171 Lincy, L. de . . . .5 PAGE Lister, Dr. Martin . 107, 108, 115 Locre, Jean- Baptiste . • 155 Louis XVI. .... 127 Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Comte de Provence . .156, 157 Louvre, Museum ot the . 60, 126 Louvrier de Lajolais, M. . 174 Loyal, Charles . . .88 Luneville 71, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 ,, faience manufactory at 87 ,, mark on statuette- . 91 Luynes, Due de . . 117, 118 Lyons . ... 10, 33 ,, faience manufactory at . 10 Macquer . . . 125, 126 Marks and monograms of the painters, decorators, and gilders of the manufactory of Sevres, from 1753 to 1800 .... 135-139 Marks and monograms on hard Sevres porcelain . . 148-152 Marks and monograms on soft Sevres porcelain . . 131-133 Marseilles 71, 78, 82, 92, 93, 9^, 96, 142, 162 ,, faience manufactories at . . . 92 ,, mark on porcelain . 162 ,, porcelain manufactory at . . , 162 Mathieu ..... 119 Meissen . 79, 105, 115, 118, 155 Mennecy - Villeroy, porcelain manufactory at . 112 Mennecy-Villeroy, mark of 113 Mery ..... 169 Meyer ..... 128 Minton, Messrs. 148 “ Monsieur,” manufactory of . 93 ,, „ mark of 93 Montereau, manufactory at . 168 Montpellier . . . 96, 98 , , faience manufac- tories at . . . .98 INDEX. i8i PAGE Morey, M 90 Morin , . . . . 108 Moustiers 33, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77 , 78, 92, 96, 98 ,, faience manufactory at 71 Nancy, faience manufactory at 91 Nantes, faience manufactory at 10 Nast 160 ,, mark of . . . . 160 Neppel 169 Nevers 33, 34, 38, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47 , 55 , 71, '78, 96, 97 , 171 ,, faience manufactory at . 38 Nieder wilier . 71, 85, 86, 87, 161 ,, faience manufactory at . 85 ,, porcelain manufactory at 16 1 Nique 88 Nuremberg . . . -79 Oiron ware {see also Henri- Deuxware). ii, 12, 13, 16, 27, 172 Olery 75 ,, mark of . . -75 Ollivier . , . . 65, 66 Orleans . 82, 96, loi, 164, 165 ,, faience manufactory at . 96 ,, mark on porcelain . . 164 ,, porcelain manufactory at 165 Oudry 1 30 PAGE Paris, faience manufactory at . 64 ,, porcelain manufactories at . . . 154-160 Passy, porcelain manufactory at 107 Pelissier, Pierre . no Pelleve, Pierre . 67 Penicaud . I7I Perrin, Widow 94, 162 ,, ,, mark of . . 94 Petit Chateau de Madrid . 9, 10 Philip, Andre. . 98 Piccolpasso . 10 Poirel, Nicolas . 46 Porcelain, etymology of the word 103 ,, French, composition of 120 “ Porcelaine a la Reine ” (Paris), manufactory of . . • I57 Porcelaine a la Reine, mark on 158 “ Porcelaine de France” . 124 Poterat, Edme . . *47 ,, Louis {see also St. Eti- enne, le Sieur de) 47, 60,105-107 Potter . . . . 160, 168 ,, mark of ’ . . .160 Pottier, Andre . . 9 , i 73 Primaticcio . . . • 3 ° “Prince de Galles ” (Paris), porcelain manufactory of the 160 Prince de Galles, mark of .160 Printing in colours on porcelain 169 Pull 171 Paillard, Brothers . . .169 Painters. Marks and monograms of the “painters,” decorators, and gilders of the manufactory of Sevres, from 1753 to 1800 Pajou Palissy, Bernard . ,, Mathurin ,, Nicolas , , ware . Panciroli, Gui Parent Paris 135-139 . 130 22-31, 107, 170 ■ 29 . 29 . 11,27, 30, 172 ■ 103, 104 . 125, 126 63, 64, 66, 76, 89, 95, 154 Quimper , . 64, 68, 69 ,, faience manufactory at 68 Rabelais Raunvier Regnault, Henri ,, Victor Regnier . Reiber . Renaud, J. M. 31 172 144 144 126 172 164 Rennes, faience manufactory at 96, 97 Reymond . . . .171 Riocreux . . . 144, 173 Ristori . . . . • 171 i 82 INDEX, PAGE Robbia, Andrea della . . 9 . , Girolamo della . 9, 10, 23 ,, Lucca della . 7, 9, 171 Robert, Joseph . . 94, 162 ,, ,, mark of . 94, 162 ,, Louis . . 144, 146 “ Rose Pompadour ” . . 123 Rosso ..... 30 Rouen 8, 9, 23, 33, 44, 46, 47, 49, 55> 56, 57» 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67,^68, 69, 71-73, 76, 78, 85, 92, 96-98, loi, 103 Rouen, ceramic museum at 47, 173 ,, faience manufactory at 46 ,, porcelain manufactory at . . . .105 Rousseau, M. . . .173 “ Rue de Bondy ” (Paris), por- celain manufactory of the, also termed “ du Due d’An- gouleme ” . . . .158 “Rue de Bondy,” marks on porcelain . . . • I59 “Rue Popincourt” (Paris), por- celain manufactory of the . 160 “ Rue Popincourt,” mark of . 160 Russinger . . . *155 St. Amand-les-Eaux 96, 98, 99 faience manufactory at 98 ,, mark of . . *99 St. Amans, M. de . . 168, 169 St. Aulaire, Marquis de . . 163 St. Clement . . 87, 88, 90 ,, faience manufactory at 88 St. Cloud . 64, 66, 67, 103, 105, 107-110, 1 15 ,, faience manufactory at 66 , , mark on faience . . 66 ,, ,, porcelain . no ,, porcelain manufactory at . . . .105 St. Etienne, le Sieur de {see Poterat, Louis) 47, 60, 105-107 St. Omer, faience manufactory at ... . 99 PAGE 128 , 148 2 2 168 87 31 93 114 95 96 1 14 114 174 Salmon Salvetat, Alphonse . . 147, Samian ware .... Samos ..... Sarreguemines, manufactory at Sauvage, Charles {see also Lemire) .... Savignies, faience manufactory at Savona ... 38, 47, 93 Savy, Honore . 92, 93, 94, 162 ,, mark of Sceaux ... 95, 96, ,, faience manufactory at . ,, mark on faience . ,, ,, porcelain porcelain manufactory at Sedille, M Sevres 112-114, 116, 118, 119, 122- 124, 126-129, I3L 132, 134, I 35 > 139-141, 143, 145-154, 156, 157, 163, 167, 168, 171 ,, manufactory at . .122 ,, marks of 122, 132, 133, 135- 139, 149, 150-152 ,, museum at 5, 31, 54, 106, 125, 141, 144, 147, 159, 163, 170, 173, 174 Sinceny . 64, 67, 68, 82, 92 ,, faience manufactory at ,, mark of . . . Soane Museum Soft porcelain. . . 103, Solon-Miles, M. . . 148, South Kensington Museum Library .... South Kensington Museum, pottery in .8, 12, 14, 16, 27, 30, 33, 40, 49, 53, 60, 61, 70, 78, 82, 87, 9 L 92, 93> 1 1 2, 1 14, 130, 156, 159, 162, 171 Stadelmayer .... 124 Staffordshire pottery 57, 100, 168 Strasburg 71, 78 — 81, 85, 89, 92, 96, 98, loi, 142 ,, faience manufactory at 78 67 67 65 124 173 10 INDEX. PAGE Strasburg mark 85 Swebach 145 Tardessir, Domenico 10 Taverne, faience manufactory at 78 Taylor, Baron 5 Tempesta, Antonio . 72 “ Terres de Luneville ” 89 Thomas, Germain . 88 Toro, Bernard 74 Tournay 69 Tremblay, Baron du 169 Trou, Henry . . 66, no ,, marks of . 66, no Urbino . . 7, 10, ID 35 , 171 183 PAGE Valenciennes, porcelain manu- factory at .164 ,, mark of . .164 Vanloo .... 123, 130 Varages, faience manufactory at 78 Vernel, Joseph . . -94 Vincennes, 80, 112, 113, 116, 117, 1 19, 120 ,, porcelain manufactory at 1 16 Vogt, M. .... 148 Voltaire .... 107 Wackenfeld . . . *79 Wedgwood . . . .107 ,, ware . . lOO Ziegler, Claude-Louis . .170 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. ,;;;C ‘'■'^'fe'v' ..'.'.vK'"' ■ V .T' ' ■ ^ .<■: ,. '■ ‘ ''-Ji U. ■•'i / . ^ \ V /■ c5.;vf I .V ■ -w . ■ „ 4 . GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00761 2944