FRANCE
Maiolica and Fayence are essentially the same, being composed of the same material and covered with a tin glaze or opaque white enamel, which serves to hide the dingy colour of the clay, and forms a fine ground for the reception of colours.
Saint Porchaire. All the earliest writers on the subject appear to have thought that it was made in Touraine, and it was called Henri Deux ware.
The ware next became known as Faïence d’Oiron, but in 1888 it was affirmed that the factory of this pottery was at Saint Porchaire.
The distinguishing characteristics of this curious ware are, in the first place, the body, which is of a creamy white pipeclay, very compact and of fine texture, so that it does not, like the ordinary fayence, require an opaque white enamel, but merely a transparent glaze; and secondly, that instead of being painted with enamel colours over the surface, it is inlaid with coloured plates, in the same manner as the champ levé enamels or niello work in metal.
Fig. 53, a candlestick of cream-coloured ware, is inlaid with arabesques and other patterns, in dark brown and reddish brown, with reliefs of three boys, tragic masks, shields of arms of France, and the cipher of Henri II.; above are three terminal figures of satyrs; date about 1540.
Fig. 53.—Candlestick.
Fig. 54, a biberon, is inlaid with interlaced bands and scrolls, rosettes, guilloches, masks, &c., in a reddish colour; a curved band on the neck has a row of ciphers, these being the letters A. M., elegantly arranged as a decorative monogram, probably that of the Constable Anne de Montmorency.
