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Ceramic

Ceramics is a word of Greek origin, keramikós, which means clay. This word includes earthenware, porcelain, and stoneware. The pieces shaped from these materials were initially utilitarian objects but later became more decorative elements.

Earthenware

The faience takes its name from Faenza, a small town in northern Italy known in Roman times. In France, Fayence in the Var department was once called Faventia in Roman times, and it was also a place known for making pottery. The oldest known pottery in the West, known to date, was found in Egypt.

Desvres, Rouen, Nevers, Quimper, Lunéville, and Gien are all French cities renowned for making earthenware. The city of Delft, located in the Netherlands, is known worldwide for its pottery. The town of Alcora, in the east of the Iberian Peninsula, owned a royal pottery factory dating from the 18th century.

Delft faience

Located 15 km from the port of Rotterdam, Delft is known for its earthenware created with this characteristic blue. This know-how has been perpetuated since the 1600s using the same method.

The clay is poured into a plaster mold. After a few hours of drying, it is removed from the mold and cleaned of all roughness. The decoration is applied by expert hands and enameled to stabilize the paint. In a second firing, the blue takes on its final color.

Desvres faience

The manufacture of earthenware began in Desvres in 1764. They shaped tiles, dishes, plates, and mugs for beer in this region of northern France, where barley and hops are grown.

This beer pot is made in the traditional version or more elaborately in the spirit of the Majolica. It is locally called "Jacquot", this name comes from a model fashioned by Jacqueline of Bavaria. She was the daughter of Duke Willhelm II of Bavaria-Straubing and was held captive in Ghent in the 15th century. The piece was found a few years later by a local potter, from whom he drew inspiration to recreate a similar model.

Desvres' pattern

Quimper faience

Quimper Faience was founded in 1690 and was the first company in the Brittany region to specialize in earthenware. It is one of the most famous manufacturers in France for its representation of characters in traditional costumes. Iconic colors such as blue, red, yellow, and green bring harmony to these pieces.

Quimper faience.

Porcelain

Porcelain takes its name from the shell called porcellena, which has the same color. It is a mixture of kaolin, quartz, and feldspar. The melting point of porcelain is between 1300 degrees and 1400 degrees.

Kaolin is the raw material of porcelain, and it is a Chinese word because it was the first country to make porcelain in Jingdezhen, a city in the east. This porcelain capital of the world has been known for over 2000 years. In France, the first kaolin deposit was discovered in Limoges. Chinaware is the most frequently used word for porcelain in the English language.

Several trades are involved in porcelain factories, model makers, sculptors, and gilders. The work of the manufacturers is identifiable by the patterns used and the choice of colors.

A few steps are necessary to realize a ceramic, such as the white, the establishment of the pattern, the lacquer, the color pigments, the filets, the firing, the signature, the brushing, and the agate. Making hand-painted sets requires mastery of the brush and significant drawing talent.

The names of some major manufacturers are mentioned below. There are other less-known workshops, and these can sometimes book beautiful surprises.

China Porcelain

Porcelain manufacturing in China already existed under the Tang Dynasty, which ruled from 618 to 907 AD.

Marco Polo brought Chinese porcelain to Europe. The properties of Kaolin were identified by the physicist René Antoine de Réaumur. This porcelain is scratch-resistant.
The production for export was done mainly in white and blue, which is still the case.

Saxony porcelain

Kaolin is an essential material for the making of hard porcelain. It was discovered in the German region of Saxony in 1709. The Meissen factory was opened the following year, in 1710. Augustus II, King of Poland, had provided financial support for the manufacture. The kaolin had been exported later in France for Alsatian manufacturers.

The Meissen factory was the first European factory to use flower pattern. Later, other European workshops used Flowers, bunches, and roses. In the category of exceptional pieces, a Meissen porcelain flute, which has gilded copper, was created in the 18th century. The creation of this porcelain instrument was a technical challenge due to the reaction of the material during firing.

Transverse flute, Met museum credit photo.

Delicate work of the Meissen Manufactory - Credit photo by Henry Lee - fotoeins.com.

Vienna porcelain

Vienna porcelain is one of the oldest European manufacturers, created by Claudius Innocentius du Pasquier in 1718 with workers from Meissen.

Under the protection of the Empress Marie-Thérèse of Austria, the company became a royal factory in 1744. It ceased its activity in 1864. Another factory was established in Augarten in 1923.

Sevres porcelain

The Sèvres factory was initially founded in Vincennes in 1740. That year, three workers from the Chantilly factory: Mr. Guérin and Mr. Dubois had settled in one of the parts of the Vincennes castle with the support of Mr. d'Orry de Fulvy and the patronage of the king. Their ambition was to compete with Chinese productions. After 5 years of intensive work, a paste of exceptional whiteness emerged. The company evolved, and other artisans were recruited. The king had decided in 1752 to transfer the company to Sèvres.

This factory was characterized by the ability of the painters to transcribe engravings and paintings with beautiful enamel colors.

Sèvres porcelain had been made only with porcelain for 30 years, from 1740 to 1770. The preparation was done with hard porcelain following the kaolin discovery in the Limoges region. This kaolin makes it possible to obtain white porcelain after firing.

"Athens cup" of the Sèvres Manufactory
which come from the Universal Exhibition of London - 1851

Limoges porcelain

The kaolin deposit was discovered in France at Saint-Yrieux around 1766 and identified by an apothecary, Mr. Marc-Hilaire Villaris. The first person to observe this white material was
Mrs. Darnet, who thought she could use it for laundry instead of soap.

This discovery allowed Limoges to become a porcelain manufacturing center, with the plant created in 1770. The factory has registered a considerable rise over the years after some adjustments to the application of the color.

Haviland porcelain

David Haviland, a soft porcelain merchant, opened a workshop in Limoges in 1842. He continued exporting products to the United States with this new hard porcelain production.

Among the printing techniques used for the reproduction of patterns, screen printing became widespread in the 19th century.

The pottery

The potter makes porcelain, faience, and sandstone. The pieces are shaped by hand on the potter's wheel. One day later, these first creations are reworked to finalized the raw piece by cleaning and smoothing the surface. The drying phase varies from a few days to a month and a half. Each piece of pottery is then enameled with the ladle or by soaking, and the baking is done at around 1000 degrees.

The most famous artisanal pottery manufacturing centers in France are those of Albi, Alsace, and the Basque Country. The pieces made by the potters of Caltagirone in Sicily are polychrome and quite varied, and they were influenced by other countries too. The pottery of Morocco is ornamented with traditional patterns in monochrome colors. Ceramics from the island of Malta are exported all over the world, with custom-made pieces and also more traditional pieces. Ceramic pots were used in Malta in the 16th century by hospital workers to store pharmaceutical products.

Moroccan pottery

Stoneware

Sandstone is a dense, hard, opaque ceramic made from a mixture of clay and silica. The Chinese made the first sandstones in the 10th century. The technique of salt enameling was created on the other side of the Rhine with a firing of over 1200°C, reinforcing the hardness.

Sandstone pots were used for the preservation of food, meat, salt, and eggs. The main manufacturers were located in the north and the east of France. The Greber Company was created in Beauvais in 1846 by Johan Peter Gréber, who was a native of Austria. Other centers developed in France in Brittany, in Burgundy, in the south, to meet the demand for these highly prized sandstone objects.

There are several stoneware manufacturers in Germany. The town of Kreussen in Bavaria is known for its salt-glazed stoneware-shaped jugs, beer mugs, and other types of containers. The first manufacturer in this city was M. Vest, who came from Vienna.