Literature.—F. Argnani, La Ceramiche et maioliche faentine (Faenza, 1889 and 1903); D. Bonghi, Intorno alle Majoliche di Castelli (Naples, 1856); Professor Douglas, “Siena,” in the Nineteenth Century, September 1900; Hensel, Essai sur la majolique (Paris, 1836); G.I. Montanari, Majoliche dipinte nella collezione del N.S.C. Domenico Mazza (Pesaro, 1836); L. Frati, Di un insigna raccolta di majoliche (Bologna, 1844); also Di un pavimento in majolica (Bologna, 1853); J.C. Robinson, Italian Sculpture of the Middle Ages (London, 1862); E. Darcel, Musée du Louvre: Notice des faïences peintes; Drury E. Fortnum, Contribution to the History of Pottery (London, 1868); Delange, Recueil de faïences italiennes du XV^e au XVII^e siècle (Paris, 1869); M. Meurer, Italienische Maiolika Fliesen (Berlin); E. Molinier, Les Majoliques italiennes en Italie (Paris, 1883), also La Céramique italienne au XV^e siècle (Paris, 1888); C. Piccolpasso, I tre libri dell’ arte del Vasajo, Castel Durante 1548 (original MS.) and translations by C. Popelyn, Paris, 1841 and 1860, also Italian editions of Rome and Milan; V. Lazari, Notizia della raccolta Correr (Venice, 1859); Drury E. Fortnum, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Majolica in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1873); Beckwith, Majolica and Faience (New York, 1877); G. Corona, La Ceramica (Milan, 1878); G. Vanzolini, Istoria delle fabbriche di majoliche metaurensi (Pesaro, 1879); A. Genolini, Majoliche italiane (Milan, 1881); Mely, La Céramique italienne (Paris, 1884); J.E. Jacobsthal, Süd-italienische Fliesen (Berlin, 1886); Bertolotti, Figulini, fonditori, e scultori (Milan, 1890); H. Wallis, Italian Ceramic Art (1897), The Oriental Influence on the Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance (1900), The Art of the Precursors (1901), The Majolica Pavements of the Fifteenth Century (1902), Oak-leaf Jars: A Fifteenth Century Italian Ware (1903), The Albarello (1904), also Seventeen Plates by Nicola Fontana (1905), and Italian Ceramic Art: Figure Designs (1905); Tesorone, L’Antico Pavimento delle Logge di Raffaello in Vaticano (Naples, 1891); Columba, Il “Quos Ego” di Raffaello (Palermo, 1895); Drury E. Fortnum, Majolica (London, 1896); also Fortnum Collection in the Oxford Museum (London, 1896); O. von Falke, Majolika (Berlin, 1896); also Sammlung R. Zschille: Katalog der italienischen Majoliken (Leipzig, 1899); Antaldi Santinelli, Museo di Pesaro (Pesaro, 1897); De Mauri, L’Amatore di Majolica (Milan, 1898); E. Hannover, De Spanske-Mauriske, og de forste Italienske Fayence (Copenhagen, 1906).
(R. L. H.; W. B.*)
French Pottery from the 15th to the 19th Century
The pottery of medieval France needs little attention here, for it was, in the main, similar to that which was made generally in Europe—rudely shaped vessels of ordinary clay often decorated with modelled ornament and glazed with yellow or brown lead glaze, or, if coated with white slip, decorated with bright green glazes, and towards the end of the 15th century with greyish blue. The later specimens of this simple ware—pronouncedly Gothic in feeling—were often extremely decorative. Avignon, Beauvais and Savigny are the best-known centres of this truly national manufacture, and, as we might expect in French work, the reliefs are often sharp and well designed. Evidence accumulates that from time to time the princes and great nobles imported Spanish or Italian workmen to make special tiles for the decoration of their palaces or chapels. The duke of Burgundy brought Jehan de Moustiers and Jehan-le-Voleur, “ouvriers en quarrieaux peints et jolis,” in 1391, to paint tiles for his palaces at Hesdin and Arras in the north, and we have already referred to the tile-work in the Spanish fashion made at Poitiers by John of Valencia, the “Saracen,” in 1384 for Duke Jean de Berry.[18] Other instances might be multiplied but that this foreign work left little or no traces on contemporary French pottery. Even at a later date, when Francis I. brought Girolamo della Robbia from Italy to decorate his “Petit Château de Madrid” in 1529, or when Masseot Abaquesne, about 1542, manufactured at Rouen the painted tile pavements for the château of Ecouen, the cathedral of Langres, and other places, nothing came of the imported methods; the works were executed and left no traces on the general pottery of the country. During the 16th century, however, two remarkable kinds of pottery were made in France of distinctive quality, and both eminently French—the Henri-Deux ware and the pottery of Bernard Palissy and his imitators.
| Fig. 48.—Tazza of Oiron pottery. (Louvre.) |
| Oiron Potter’s mark. |
Henri-Deux, Oiron or St Porchaire ware, for all these names have in turn been applied to the enigmatic and wonderful pottery, specimens of which are now valued at more than their weight in gold, was once believed to have been made by the librarian Bernard, and his assistant Charpentier, for their patroness Helène de Hangest about 1529 at her château at Oiron, near Thouars.[19] A few years ago this theory was discarded in favour of one which assigned them to some unknown potter of St Porchaire in the same region;[20] but even of this theory there is insufficient proof, and we are left in doubt both as to the maker and the place of origin. All we know is that the ware dates from the reign of Henry II., and that it was probably made somewhere near Oiron, as most of the specimens have been found in that district. The work is sui generis, for it had no direct ancestry, neither did it leave any mark on contemporary French pottery. Sixty-five pieces of the ware (see fig. 48) are known to be in museums and private collections; the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum have the best collections of their kinds, but the Rothschilds still hold the greater number of examples. The ware is fashioned in a simple whitish pipeclay, and ornamented with interlacing strap-work patterns, typical of the period, inlaid in yellow, buff or dark-brown clay. The forms are generally graceful, but some examples are over-elaborate and overloaded with modelled ornament. The pieces were designed to serve as candlesticks, salt-cellars, tazzas, ewers, holy-water pots and dishes. After the vessels had been “thrown” and “turned” to a perfect shape, metal tools, such as were used by the bookbinders and casemakers of that day, were pressed into the clay, so as to form sunk cells of ornamental tooling. These cells were carefully filled with finely-prepared slips of other clays, that would burn yellow, buff or dark-brown; and when the whole was dry the piece was carefully smoothed again, and moulded reliefs were attached, or touches of colour were applied. After being fired the ware was glazed, apparently with the ordinary lead glaze of the time carefully prepared and fired again. At a later period the ornament was not inlaid in this elaborate manner, but was simply painted, as indeed it might all have been so far as decorative effect is concerned.
Palissy Ware.—Bernard Palissy was a genius of original talent, but, at the hands of his literary admirers, he has gained a legendary rank as one of the great potters of the world which his pottery does not warrant. He is supposed to have spent sixteen years in the search for the white enamel which was being used all the time in Italy and Spain—probably he was searching for the mystery of Chinese porcelain—and when he settled down to make the “Palissy ware,” he did nothing more than carry to perfection the methods of the village pot-makers of his own district. On a hard-fired red clay he disposed groups of moulded plants, shells, fish and reptiles, painted them with crude green, brown and yellow colours, and glazed the whole with a well-prepared lead glaze. His style soon had numerous imitators, like A. Cléricy and B. de Blémont, who executed works quite as good as those of their master; but their works also vanished and left no permanent impression on the general trend of French pottery.
Meantime Italian, and, it may be, Spanish potters strayed over the French border and attempted to introduce the manufacture of their tin-enamelled wares; for we know of the works of Gambin and Tardessir of Faenza, established at Lyons about 1556; of Sigalon at Nîmes in 1548; of Jehan Ferro at Nantes about 1580, and other sporadic efforts. The needed impetus came, however, when the Mantuan duke, Louis de Gonzague, became duke of Nevers in 1565; and we find Italian majolists, working under princely patronage, planting their decadent art in the centre of France. The first efforts met with little success until, with the appearance of the Conrades from Savona, who were domiciled in Nevers in 1602, we get the genuine ware of Nevers. Naturally the first productions, whether of the Conrades or their predecessors, were in the style of the debased majolica of Savona, but the body and glaze of the ware is harder, the colours are not so rich, and the execution is less spirited. The first departure from Italian traditions is seen in the ware of the so-called “Persian style” of Nevers—probably adopted from contemporary work in Limoges enamels on metal—where conventional and fanciful designs of flowers and foliage, birds, animals or figures were thickly raised in white enamel on a ground of bright, intense cobalt-blue glaze. After the middle of the 17th century the Italian style of design appears to have been entirely replaced by pseudo-oriental patterns painted in blue or in polychrome, but really imitated from the “Delft” copies of Chinese and Japanese porcelain. When Rouen and Moustiers became famous for their distinctive wares Nevers copied their designs also, and on a gradually descending scale the manufacture continued to the end of the 18th century, when France was flooded with the rude Faiences patriotiques from this centre.
| Fig. 49.—Dish of Rouen enamelled pottery, painted in blues and deep red. |
| Nevers Potters’ marks. |