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Pottery illustrated in L'Encyclopédie,
ou Dictionnaire Raisonné, by Denis Diderot and Jean-le-Rond d'Alembert, 1751 |
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Faience,
a refined earthenware, is tin-glazed, so-called because tin was added to the lead-based
glaze in order to produce an opaque white surface. French faience potters developed
many different decorative styles, some very elaborate and others quite simple, for use on
more common plates and other vessels.
Canadian and American archaeologists have developed several
methods of classifying the faience exported to 18th-century French colonies in North
America. The type names provided here are from a revision of John Walthall's
classification ("Faience in French Colonial Illinois," Historical
Archaeology 25 (1991):80-105).
To view larger images, click on the
pictures:
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There are two major kinds of
faience. Faïence blanche has white tin-glaze covering all surfaces; faïence
brune vessels have white tin-glazed interiors and brown lead-glazed exterior
surfaces. |
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Faïence Brune:Rouen Polychrome |
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Most faïence brune was
made in Normandy, particularly in and around Rouen. The lead- glazed exteriors
withstood heat better than tin glaze, permitting the colonists to heat these plates and
platters before serving a meal. The name Rouen Polychrome is applied to this
style of decoration. Both of these sherds were found at the Dog River site (1MB161). |
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Faïence
Blanche: Brittany Blue on White
All of the other illustrated sherds are faïence blanche. Many of these
styles originated in northern France, too. The simple blue rim bands found on the Brittany
Blue on White type are still seen today on pottery made at the town of Quimper in
Brittany. |
Normandy PlainUndecorated vessels are collectively known as the Normandy Plain type. They date primarily to the late17th and
early 18th centuries, when they were gradually replaced by the growing popularity of
blue-on-white designs drawn from Chinese porcelain prototypes. |
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| Normandy
Blue on White |
| Rouen potters created a "Lambrequin-style"
near the end of the reign of Louis XIV, with elaborate pendant leaf motifs evocative of
baroque drapery. These specimens from the Port
Dauphin Village site (1MB221) exemplify the leafy lambrequin design on the
top sherd, and a rare maker's mark on the base of a fragmentary teacup (lower right). |
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| By the mid-1700s, Claude Guillibaud's factory
in Rouen had popularized polychrome designs and new border patterns borrowed from Chinese
porcelain, as seen on these plates. |
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A variant of Guillibaud-style
borders has the blue pattern outlined with darker pigments, often black or dark blue.
This type, called St. Cloud Polychrome after the pottery town of St. Cloud near
Paris, is decorated with the flame-like motif or a hatched border. |
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Seine Polychrome |
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A wide variety of polychrome floral patterns are grouped together under the type Seine
Polychrome, named for the popularity of those designs at Parisian potteries. But
these styles are poorly known and may derive from other regions of France, such as the La
Rochelle area. These examples, from the Old Mobile
site (1MB94), are pieces of a salt cellar (far left) and a pitcher. |
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Southern
French potters created decorative styles easily distinguished from these northern
patterns. To the potteries of Moustiers are attributed these sorts of delicate
flowery and geometrical borders, but the influential style was also widely copied. |
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Common wares produced in the Moustiers region often have this
border pattern. The yellow/orange hue is typical of pottery from Provence. |
Also see: "La
faïence de Place-Royale," by Nicole Genêt, La collection Patrimoines,
Dossier 45 (Québec, 1996)
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Updated: 06/30/03 |
