French porcelain |
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Rouen porcelain is soft-paste porcelain made in the city of Rouen, Normandy, France, during a brief period from about 1673 to 1696. It was the earliest French porcelain, but was probably never made on a commercial basis; only nine pieces are now thought to survive. [1]
Rouen had been a centre for the production of Rouen faience (tin-glazed earthenware pottery), since at least the 1540s. Louis Poterat, the owner of the porcelain factory, came from the leading family of faience producers in the city at the time, and continued his faience production in another factory. [2]
In 1644 Nicolas Poirel, sieur (lord) of Grandval, obtained a fifty-year royal monopoly over the production of faience in Rouen. By 1647 a factory owned by Edme Poterat (1612–87), who was probably an experienced potter, was producing faience, by arrangement with Poirel. Louis Poterat, eldest son of Edme, was granted a monopoly in 1673 for the making of porcelain in all France. The monopoly made no reference to an earlier one granted in 1664 to Claude Révérend, a Paris importer of Dutch pottery, which does not seem to have resulted in any successful manufacture. Révérend claimed to have perfected the process in Holland; it was perhaps just a sort of faience. [3]
In the 17th century Europeans were unaware that very specific clays, high in kaolin, were needed for porcelain, and also that a very high firing temperature was needed, in fact one higher than most European kilns could have reached, even if the potters were aware of the need. Many thought that the translucency of the Chinese porcelain they sought to emulate would be achieved if the paste included generous quantities of ground glass. The product resulting from these attempts is called soft-paste porcelain, which despite many disadvantages proved an acceptable substitute for true Asian hard-paste porcelain in both England and France, being manufactured until after 1800 in both countries. For example, the leading French factory, Sèvres, continued to make both types until 1804. [4]
In the 1670s the only soft-paste porcelain to have been produced in Europe was the Medici porcelain made for a brief period in Florence a century earlier. This was made from about 1575 to 1587 as a project sponsored by Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Some 60–70 examples survive, nearly all in various museum collections around the world. Like Rouen porcelain, they are nearly all in underglaze blue on white, with darker manganese outlines; there are a handful that are plain, or use two colours. [5]
The new Rouen soft-paste porcelain material appears to have been invented by Louis' father Edme. [2] At this time imports of both Chinese export porcelain and its Japanese equivalent had reached high levels, and governments and potters across Europe were very keen to develop their own industry, a goal not properly fulfilled until Meissen porcelain was developed many decades later. [7]
Rouen produced the first soft-paste porcelain in France, but only nine surviving soft-paste pieces are now generally attributed to Rouen, with a possible tenth. [8] Many other claimants have been reassigned to Saint-Cloud porcelain, which is often very similar. [9] None are marked, and an important piece of evidence is the coat-of-arms of the Norman lawyer Asselin de Villequiers on the mustard pot (illustrated below), now in the Sèvres museum. His arms are also found on Rouen faience. [10]
All are (like Chinese blue and white porcelain) decorated with underglaze painting using cobalt blue; the blue is often a very deep colour. In most, the tone of the "white" glazed body tends to a grey green, and five of the nine have distinctive areas of blue stippling, including the mustard pot and the New York pot pourri jar illustrated here. Both also share the "organization of the painted decoration within shaped panels", which is found on two of the other pieces. There is another pot pourri jar on the same model as the New York one; this draws from contemporary styles in silver. [11] There are no recorded dates for production, the royal patent of 1673 being taken as the earliest possible date; it is assumed Rouen porcelain production ceased after the death of Louis Poterat in 1696. [2]
The porcelain at Rouen became known as "Porcelaine française". [12] These events followed the creation of the French East India Company in 1664, and the influx of Chinese wares it generated. The Rouen paste was very light, lighter than any other French make except Sèvres porcelain, and clearly less amber than Saint-Cloud porcelain. [12] In contrast with Saint-Cloud, Rouen porcelain was only produced on a small scale and failed to be commercially viable. [13]
When the next royal patent for porcelain was granted in 1702 to the owners of Saint-Cloud porcelain, the grant noted that the Rouen factory "did nothing more than approach the secret, and never brought it to the perfection these petitioners have acquired". [14]
Soft-paste porcelain is a type of ceramic material in pottery, usually accepted as a type of porcelain. It is weaker than "true" hard-paste porcelain, and does not require either the high firing temperatures or the special mineral ingredients needed for that. There are many types, using a range of materials. The material originated in the attempts by many European potters to replicate hard-paste Chinese export porcelain, especially in the 18th century, and the best versions match hard-paste in whiteness and translucency, but not in strength. But the look and feel of the material can be highly attractive, and it can take painted decoration very well.
Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's work and brought this type of porcelain to the market, financed by Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. The production of porcelain in the royal factory at Meissen, near Dresden, started in 1710 and attracted artists and artisans to establish, arguably, the most famous porcelain manufacturer known throughout the world. Its signature logo, the crossed swords, was introduced in 1720 to protect its production; the mark of the swords is reportedly one of the oldest trademarks in existence.
The Manufacture nationale de Sèvres is one of the principal European porcelain factories. It is located in Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine, France. It is the continuation of Vincennes porcelain, founded in 1740, which moved to Sèvres in 1756. It has been owned by the French crown or government since 1759, and has always maintained the highest standards of quality. Almost immediately, it replaced Meissen porcelain as the standard-setter among European porcelain factories, retaining this position until at least the 19th century.
Liverpool porcelain is mostly of the soft-paste porcelain type and was produced between about 1754 and 1804 in various factories in Liverpool. Tin-glazed English delftware had been produced in Liverpool from at least 1710 at numerous potteries, but some then switched to making porcelain. A portion of the output was exported, mainly to North America and the Caribbean.
Edmé Samson, founder of the porcelain firm Samson, Edmé et Cie, was a famous copyist of porcelain and pottery. The firm produced high-quality copies or imitations of earlier styles of porcelain, mainly 18th-century European and Chinese and Japanese porcelain, but also earlier styles such as Italian maiolica.
Capodimonte porcelain is porcelain created by the Capodimonte porcelain manufactory, which operated in Naples, Italy, between 1743 and 1759. Capodimonte is the most outstanding factory for early Italian porcelain, the Doccia porcelain of Florence being the other main Italian factory. Capodimonte is most famous for its moulded figurines.
William Billingsley (1758–1828) was an influential painter of porcelain in several English porcelain factories, who also developed his own recipe for soft-paste porcelain, which produced beautiful results but a very high rate of failure in firing. He is a leading name associated with the English Romantic style of paintings of groups of flowers on porcelain that is sometimes called "naturalistic" by older sources, although that may not seem its main characteristic today.
The Frankenthal Porcelain Factory was one of the greatest porcelain manufacturers of Germany and operated in Frankenthal in the Rhineland-Palatinate between 1755 and 1799. From the start they made hard-paste porcelain, and produced both figurines and dishware of very high quality, somewhat reflecting in style the French origin of the business, especially in their floral painting. Initially they were a private business, but from 1761 were owned by the local ruler, like most German porcelain factories of the period.
Art pottery is a term for pottery with artistic aspirations, made in relatively small quantities, mostly between about 1870 and 1930. Typically, sets of the usual tableware items are excluded from the term; instead the objects produced are mostly decorative vessels such as vases, jugs, bowls and the like which are sold singly. The term originated in the later 19th century, and is usually used only for pottery produced from that period onwards. It tends to be used for ceramics produced in factory conditions, but in relatively small quantities, using skilled workers, with at the least close supervision by a designer or some sort of artistic director. Studio pottery is a step up, supposed to be produced in even smaller quantities, with the hands-on participation of an artist-potter, who often performs all or most of the production stages. But the use of both terms can be elastic. Ceramic art is often a much wider term, covering all pottery that comes within the scope of art history, but "ceramic artist" is often used for hands-on artist potters in studio pottery.
Chantilly porcelain is French soft-paste porcelain produced between 1730 and 1800 by the manufactory of Chantilly in Oise, France. The wares are usually divided into three periods, 1730-51, 1751-1760, and a gradual decline from 1760 to 1800.
Mennecy-Villeroy porcelain is a French soft-paste porcelain from the manufactory established under the patronage of Louis-François-Anne de Neufville, duc de Villeroy (1695–1766) and — from 1748 — housed in outbuildings in the park of his château de Villeroy, and in the nearby village of Mennecy (Île-de-France). The history of the factory remains somewhat unclear, but it is typically regarded as producing between about 1738 and 1765.
The city of Nevers, Nièvre, now in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in central France, was a centre for manufacturing faience, or tin-glazed earthenware pottery, between around 1580 and the early 19th century. Production of Nevers faience then gradually died down to a single factory, before a revival in the 1880s. In 2017, there were still two potteries making it in the city, after a third had closed. However the quality and prestige of the wares has gradually declined, from a fashionable luxury product for the court, to a traditional regional speciality using styles derived from the past.
The city of Rouen, Normandy has been a centre for the production of faience or tin-glazed earthenware pottery, since at least the 1540s. Unlike Nevers faience, where the earliest potters were immigrants from Italy, who at first continued to make wares in Italian maiolica styles with Italian methods, Rouen faience was essentially French in inspiration, though later influenced by East Asian porcelain. As at Nevers, a number of styles were developed and several were made at the same periods.
French porcelain has a history spanning a period from the 17th century to the present. The French were heavily involved in the early European efforts to discover the secrets of making the hard-paste porcelain known from Chinese and Japanese export porcelain. They succeeded in developing soft-paste porcelain, but Meissen porcelain was the first to make true hard-paste, around 1710, and the French took over 50 years to catch up with Meissen and the other German factories.
China painting, or porcelain painting, is the decoration of glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases or statues. The body of the object may be hard-paste porcelain, developed in China in the 7th or 8th century, or soft-paste porcelain, developed in 18th-century Europe. The broader term ceramic painting includes painted decoration on lead-glazed earthenware such as creamware or tin-glazed pottery such as maiolica or faience.
The Lowestoft Porcelain Factory was a soft-paste porcelain factory on Crown Street in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, which was active from 1757 to 1802. It mostly produced "useful wares" such as pots, teapots, and jugs, with shapes copied from silverwork or from Bow and Worcester porcelain. The factory, built on the site of an existing pottery or brick kiln, was later used as a brewery and malt kiln. Most of its remaining buildings were demolished in 1955.
Ludwigsburg porcelain is porcelain made at the Ludwigsburg Porcelain Manufactory founded by Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, on 5 April 1758 by decree as the Herzoglich-ächte Porcelaine-Fabrique. It operated from the grounds of the Baroque Ludwigsburg Palace. After a first two decades that were artistically, but not financially, successful, the factory went into a slow decline and was closed in 1824. Much later a series of other companies used the Ludwigsburg name, but the last production was in 2010.
Vezzi porcelain is porcelain made by the Vezzi porcelain factory in Venice, Italy, established in 1720 by the Vezzi family. It was the first porcelain factory in Italy, after the experimental Medici porcelain of the 16th century. It operated only until 1727, so surviving pieces are few, probably fewer than 200. It made "true" hard-paste porcelain, and was only the third factory in Europe to do so, hiring technicians from Meissen porcelain and Vienna porcelain, the first two makers.
Cozzi porcelain is porcelain made by the Cozzi factory in Venice, which operated between 1764 and 1812. Production included sculptural figurines, mostly left in plain glazed white, and tableware, mostly painted with floral designs or with figures in landscapes and buildings, in "bright but rough" colours. They were rather derivative, drawing from Meissen porcelain in particular in the early years.
Le Nove porcelain was made in the 18th century in the town now called Nove, near Bassano, then in the Republic of Venice's mainland territories, the terrafirma. It was made at a factory owned by Pasquale Antonibon, who was already making fine maiolica in fashionable styles, which continued to be made alongside the porcelain. Production of porcelain began in 1762 and ended when Antonibon died in 1773. But it resumed in 1781, when Francisco Parolin leased the factory for twenty years in a partnership with the Antonibons, known as the "Parolin period". This lasted until 1802. Production of porcelain continued intermittently until 1835.