France

English pottery history is fascinating.  Diverse regional styles.  Colorful personalities.  International influence.  Few European pottery centers can compare.  Perhaps Delft, Rhenish stoneware, Italian Maiolica and Hispano-Moresque…

This leaves a pretty big hole right in the middle of Europe.  France.  If you’re really up on your history, you’d know that much of English slip decoration – marbling, feathering, sgraffito – originated in the wine regions of 13th – 14th century Plantagenet controlled Aquitaine and Normandy.  Most authors stick to just mentioning Sévres porcelain and Bernard Palissy.

French peasant pottery, like French wine, was ubiquitous.  This ‘redware’ rarely gets a nod.  Troyes pottery maybe.  Or the venerable pottery villages, chiefly La Bourne, of Poitiers.

Faience permeated France by the early 14th century.  It was made everywhere, from obscure places like Sadriac and Amboise to major centers like Havre and Rouen.  It’s expansion wasn’t always peaceful.  18th century Lille faience potters almost waged open warfare against Dunkirk upstarts cutting in on Lille’s turf.  Even minor faience villages like Roanne would erupt against treaties with England (and devastating imports).

The international porcelain market was cut throat at best.  Sévres originated with runaway workmen, its technical know-how stolen via alcoholic subterfuges.  But during the Napoleonic Wars enough porcelain from large (Limoges, Sceaux, etc.) and small (Strasbourg, Marseilles, etc.) centers was smuggled into England to seriously disrupt the market.

Women played a noticeable role as well.  Hélène de Hangest established an early, and long lived, faience pottery on her estate in Oiron.  Hélène’s ardent patronage was key to faience’s spread across France.  When Lille potter Jaques Febvrier died in 1729 his widow Marie Barbe Vandepopelière expanded the shop, marketing heavily to Holland.  Equally, the unnamed widow of Francois Dorez in Valenciennes continued the trade.  When a Lyons faience pottery faltered in 1733 it’s (male) owners ran.  Françoise Blateran kept it going until 1758.  Did Mme Blateran appear out of thin air?  Were “widows” not potters before their husbands’ death?

Anyway, these and many more French potters rarely get the mention they deserve.  In English, at least.  Much of this abbreviated ‘tour de France’ comes from Albert Jacquemart’s “History of the Ceramic Art” (translated into English, 1873).  Then again, Jacquemart’s 613 page “Descriptive and Philosophical Study of the Pottery of All Ages and All Nations” allows 160 pages for French contributions and exactly 5 pages to the whole of English efforts…

Readings:
History of the Ceramic Art.  Albert Jacquemart.  Sampson, Low, Martson and Searle/London (English translation).  1873.

Flow Blue: A Closer Look.  Jeffrey Snyder.  Shiffer Books/New York.  2000.

If These Pots Could Talk.  Ivor Noel Hume. University Press of New England/Hanover, NH.  2001.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Continental Pottery and Porcelain.  ReginaldHaggar.  Hawthorn Books/New York.  1960.

 

Technorati Tags: French pottery,English pottery,Delft,Rhenish stoneware,Italian Maiolica,Hispano-Moresque,Sévres,porcelain,Bernard Palissy,marbling,feathering,sgraffito,Plantagenet,La Bourne,Limoges,Sceaux,Faience,Poitiers,Hélène de Hangest,Jaques Febvrier,Marie Barbe Vandepopelière,Françoise Blateran,Albert Jacquemart

Hausmalerei

Fake, Forgery:  An intentionally deceptive replica or reproduction.

Replica, Reproduction:  An acknowledged copy intended to educate, preserve, or other valid motive – unless done with unscrupulous intent (see above).

Almost every European ceramic style was forged during the 17th to 19th centuries.  Meissen and Sévrès were popular targets.  But migrating craftsmen spread techniques legally, and popular interest sparked legitimate revivals.  Early Seigburg stoneware tankards (from original molds) reappeared in the 1830’s, as did Raeren stoneware in the 1880’s.  For a time Palissy ware was all the rage.

Business Plan:  A set of goals and the plan for reaching those goals.

As European porcelain production spread, quality control efforts clashed with efforts to keep factories solvent.  Owners (usually local royalty) employed many methods to avoid bankruptcy.  Example, some required Jews in their domain to purchase a certain amount of  product.  A less racist idea foreshadowed the modern “Seconds Sale.”

Hausmaler:  A painter of Hausmalerei.

Hausmalerei is the German word for “home painting.”  Freelance decorators set up shop outside most European ceramics factories, beginning in Germany in the mid 17th century.  They purchased defective, undecorated wares and applied their own enameling.  In France an outside decorator was called a chamberlan.  In England outside decorators were called outside decorators.

Hausmalerei wasn’t an actual forgery of the factory ware it came from.  The trouble was, hausmalers got good at it.  Hausmalerei was seen as a necessary but frowned upon evil – even in the best of times.  Just owning a kiln made one suspicious in the eyes of authorities.  Competition with factory-painted wares became so intense, many factories cut off supplies of blank porcelain.  But hausmalerei continued, at times by ‘less than legal’ means…

Individuals Looking For Unusual Pieces:  The usual patrons of this work.

Readings:
The Concise Encyclopedia of Continental Pottery and Porcelain.  Reginald Haggar.  Hawthorn Books/New York.  1960.

 

Technorati Tags: Forgery,Copy,Replica,Reproduction,Business Plan,Hausmalerei,Meissen,Sévrès,Seigburg,stoneware tankards,Raeren stoneware,Palissey,chamberlan,outside decorator,Seconds Sale