Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts

Wednesday 9 January 2019

Keller and Guerin Luneville Vase-Piece of the Week.


  I have had this beautiful pretty little vase for over a decade.Many have tried to prise it away from me but up to now I have not given in to the lure of....money. I keep thinking where am I going to find another one.
It is decorated so simply with floral decoration applied in enamel over a earthenware base. It looks like the flowers are swaying in the wind.
Its only 17cm high, and as a potter I can tell that the thrower has just patted the rim down creating a ever so delicately placed dimple around the neck of the piece where it becomes more rotund, that just gives it a little something extra.
Now even after all this time and without too much research I have to admit I don't know who the exact decorator is. I would love to think its a Ernest Bussiere piece but it could be Louis Majorelle or Lachenal. What I do know is its a little gem.
Signed K G Luneville that is the mark for Keller and Guerin.

In 1728 Jacques Chambrette established the first earthenware factory in Lorraine, in Lunéville besides the river Meuse, not far from Vezouse.
He formulated a new type of earthenware called "terre de Lorraine" in 1748 based on the study of English potteries.
He had great economic and artistic success.
The factory was awarded the status of Manufacture Royale de Fayence by the Ducs of Lorraine in 1749.
The Lunéville manufacture was ti rival the expanding English and German ceramics centres and Chambrette managed to successfully export his wares to Italy, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and even The Netherlands.
In 1786 Sébastien Keller bought Luneville from the Chambrette family following the bankruptcy of the pottery manufacturer in 1785. For the next 137 years, the Keller family controlled the company. In 1832, Sébastien Keller's son aligned with his brother-in-law Guérin to give birth to the mark K&G (or KG) from the names Keller and Guérin and during the following century, Lunéville was the seat of "Keller and Guérin" (Société KG).
Between 1700 and 1800 several faience manufacturers installed their companies in a tight network in Lorraine. The factories produced everyday utilitarian and decorative objects.
Since silver dinner services were prohibited by the king (who used the taxing of such objects to finance his wars), faience manufacturers were able to sell wares more easily.
The artisans were inspired by their surroundings; Subjects were decorated with naturalistic styles, faience was decorated with flowers, insects, real and fictitious animals and exotic figures. They produced faience dogs, which were placed in the halls of houses ( the French have an expression "to stare at each other like faience dogs").
Later on Chinese decorations, introduced by Jesuits who brought back examples from their often dangerous missions. Jacques Chambrette, who suffered from the high taxes that were imposed on him in the ducal region that was controlled on behalf of the King of France, coveted the episcopal area, which was connected to France, but where the influences of Louis XIV were much less smothering.
In 1758, Jacques Chambrette started a second faience factory in Saint-Clément, which lies in the Diocese of the Bishop of Metz. In the 19th century the originally German family Keller, soon allied with Guérin. This gave new life to the factory by industrialising it.
This was an era in which Lunéville and its surroundings provided very skillful workers.
The area around the faience factory, under patronage of Sainte Anne, developed.
In 1900, there were around 1,100 employees. The factory's products had a worldwide reputation and participated successfully in various fields of art and industrial exhibitions.
During the design period we know as Art Nouveau Keller and Guirin employed some of the most gifted designers Louis Majorelle and Ernest Bussiere were to create some of the finest designs. Lachenal would add to the design base of the company.
In 1922 Édouard Fenal, originally from Pexonne and Badonviller, bought the factories of Lunéville and Saint-Clément, so employment was guaranteed in Lunéville and Saint-Clément.
New designers were brought in to cater for the new wealth that was around and the new style that we now know as art deco rushed in with its geometric lines.
Mougin Brothers would help to bring the whole area into a new style.
The Second World War marked a recession.
The name Geo Conde is often seen on wares.
St Clement produced huge quantities of crackle glazed animaliar following the French tradition of sculpting the animal form that went back centuries.
The production of these in ceramic made them more affordable. Some of these animals were of varying quality some having slightly strange colour combinations of deep reds and blues that are highly collectible today.
In 1979 a new group was further developed by buying out the Sarreguemines ceramics complex. Édouard's son, Gilbert, was in charge of the group which also comprises Salins, Vitry-le-François and Digoin.
The Lunéville production stops in 1981.
Only the factory of Saint-Clément is still operational by1999.

In the renovated buildings nowadays small and medium sized companies are still working.

Friday 30 November 2018

Theodore Deck-Ceramic Genius.

Recently the work of one of the most remarkable craftsmen has become sought after again. The appreciation of his work has never wained in the eyes of those who understand the art of the ceramist but here in England we have for so long concentrated on some of the work of rather average makers such as Susie Cooper and Charlotte Rhead. And of course Clarrice Cliff. Though Charlotte Rhead came from an illustrious family of ceramists. The Rheads were indeed a skilled bunch. But there is not many who can compare to the legacy that is left behind by Theodore Deck. (1823-1891)
What he did was de-industrialise the art of the potter running a workshop with around a score of craftsmen. He was inspired by the middle east and his Persian Ware is indeed now highly valued. It may not be clear as to the influence ha had on British ceramics but I see similarities with some of Burmantofts and by far the most important company in the style of the middle East Mintons.
Deck wrote a book called “La Faience”. I must get a copy of this book as I am informed by Peter Hyland that there is detailed technical information.
As a ceramist myself I have a thirst for the information that potters have or did have in the past. I suck this knowledge up, but the skill in interpreting the techniques are a different matter and trial and error is something that I have learned to take with a rather large dose of patience. Having glaze recipes is only half of it.
Josiah Wedgwood was a chemist first and foremost.
Deck's book La Fiaence was read by some of the best Louis Solon who began at Sevre before moving across the channel to Mintons, admired his writings.
Fiance the word derives from the town of Faenza in Northern Italy but Deck thought the word to be clouding the real historical sense of the fact thet the Persians were making fiaence long before the Italians. We now see some of this Persian ware was indeed Turkish, a style now called Iznik. Any type of earthenware decorated with an enamel or coloured glaze was accepted as Fiaence at the time
.
Deck was born in Guebwiller in the Alsace region of France. This was about 12 miles north-west of Mulhouse at the foot of the Vosges mountains. Mulhouse is the town where Christopher Dresser died. He will always be known for his designs for Mintons. His father Richard was a silk dyer. At secondary school near Belfort Theodore showed a particular love of chemistry. At 17 in 1840 he was forced to return home to Guebwiller to continue the family silk dyeing business along with his brother Xavier.
It didn't work out and he left for Strasbourg where he became a stove-makers apprentice.
Cast Iron stoves covered in ceramic tiles were commonplace in France and Germany. In the crowded marketplace the need to make something functional stand out was paramount to selling ones wares. He learned from his mentor Hugelin the art of using different coloured clays to inlay tiles. This style was kown as Saint Porchaire.
He was not to be kept still in the evenings he studied sculpture with Andre Friedrich.
He recalled how he had been fascinated by a painted terracotta figure he had seen on a school trip to Switzerland and when he asked who made it he was told “A potter”.
He must have liked the sound of this.
He went on his own in 1844 at the age of 21. The art of the stove maker was to travel and show off his work and he was noticed by manufactures who wished to employ him as he travelled through Germany learning local skills and styles along the way.
He made his way to Vienna where he made large stoves to for the Palace of Schonbrunn. He then went on to Budapest, Prague, even Berlin.
In 1847 he returned to France and began to work for Madame Vogt one of the leading stove makers. In 1848 work stopped at the factory when the Second Republic began. He retrned to Guebwiller and set up a small atelier to make vases and decorative objects, oh and stoves. It didnt work out too well for him and in 1851 he returned to Paris where Loius Napoleon had quietened down the unrest.
Madame Vogt's daughter Madame Dumas was his next employer where Deck became foreman. The Exposition Universalle of 1855 saw the Dumas factory exhibiting mosaic tile panels in many colours.
Mintons also exhibited that year with their “earthenwares and stonewares enamelled or glazed majolica. Deck would have seen these. He may also have found out that Minton had been developing low coloured glazes applied to earthenware body creating their majolica. Herbert Minton had seen Palissy ware on a visit to Rouen in 1849. Leon Arnoux had joined Minton in 1849 and became Art Director.
In 1856 he ventured out again with the help of his brother Xavier set up a new atelier at 20, rue Fontaine-au-Roi relocating to Boulevard Saint Jaques eventually moving from stove facings to ornamental ceramics and figures.
Had that school trip stayed with him all these years.
The Henry Deux had been mastered by Deck during his training and it was re-adopted.
The style was based on 16th century book binding designs. The potter Avisseau also reproduced this style that was taken up in the 1860's by Charles Toft at Minton.

He showed his creations at the 1861 Salon des Arts et Industries of 1861 and then the London International Exhibition of 1861. He displayed a copy of a 107cm high piece that was known to be in the Alhambra Palace in Spain before 1400. This vase is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, acquired shortly after.
He was now firmly rooted in the middle east for his inspiration. Publications were now being made available showing drawings of Islamaic decorative stylles.
Recuil de dessins pour l'art et l'industrie by Orientalist Adalbert de Beaumont it was reissued 20 years later in 1859.
Owen Jones Grammar of Ornament would have been available to him in Paris.
It had reproductions of Arabian decoration and design.

The 1862 Exhibition saw him well received.
After moving rue de Vaugirirard in Paris.
1867 saw the more experienced Deck show off his technical quality that had been improving all the time.
He now employed trained Paris Salon artistes we in Britain would be less familiar with these artistes such as Jean Louis Hamon and Joseph-Victor Ranvier who painted in a Neo-Grec style. Ranvier would become his chief artist.
Felix Braquemond had worked for Criel Sevres and Haviland.
The artistic director of Christophle & Cie known for their gold and silver work, Emile Reiber supplied Deck with various shapes.
Proceeds from a piece of “collaboration” was always divided equally between Deck and the artist. Solon called this an “unprecidented collaboration.”
Solon published The History and description of Old French Faience in 1903.
In it he accounts Deck tells us the conditions were far from a sweatshop but were most ideal. He says the gatherings of artists of the Bohemian persuasion all gathered anxious to see the results of the last firing.
The V&A acquired several more objects and his reputation was growing wildly. His work often showed semi-clad nymphs some of which show a foretaste of W. S Coleman's work for Minton.
It is not known if the artists influenced each other but Colin Minton Campbell Director of Minton appointed Coleman in 1871 and was known to admire Deck's work.
Mintons were exhibitors in the 1867 Paris Exhibition and he purchased some of Deck's work, for his own collection.
He was offered the chance to half share (without any capital) in a pottery he planned to build....in Leeds.
Deck preferred to stay in Paris and declined.
Could this wealthy industrialist be John Holroyd who in 1863 bought the firm of Wilcox & Co Sanitary Ware near Leeds and in 1870 expanded the factory to trade as Burmantofts Pottery.
Burmantofts came close to Decks Persian ware it is an interesting thought what might have been.
He continued to experiment some of his shapes were now becoming Chinese in inspiration with naturalistic designs on white ground. His move into high fired porcelain in 1868 became cost pro-hibitive and were discontinued.
Deck stood in Municipal elections in Paris just after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War which saw the siege of Paris. Armistice was signed in 1871 but at this time Alsace was taken over by Prussia. He decided to stay French as many Alsatians did.
In 1873 he scored notable success in Vienna being awarded Medalion d'Honnneur.
This is when Edmond Lachenal was mentioned prominantly on his stand.
Edmond would go on to found his own factory. His son Roaul would continue his work through the 30's into a more geometric style.
Deck now had a shop close to the Grande Opera on Rue Halevy.
So it was the period we now call Aesthetic Movement that saw a seed change in styles and inspiration came from all over the world not just the middle east and new artists and industrialists were always looking to exploit the prevailing taste. This melting pot of design was being formed and it is easy to look back now and talk about it in sequence, but at the time a movement was in force that could not be stopped and wealth was available to purchase. History was, literally being made.
It was said in contemporary account published in the Pottery Gazette that his pottery “stands tranquil and as silent in its radiant garden as if its gay creations were all the work of magic”.
Round furnaces were noted and the Director kept the composition of the green-grey Deck Clay secret.
In La Faience he says he could not give fixed formula's on Faience body as it depended on locality.
The Gazette reporter was in no doubt to the overall quality of the enamel, meaning of course the glaze saying. “Extroadarily lustrous, reflecting the light from every protruding boss angle, and curve, as if from burnished glass”.
Deck's love of chemistry enabled him to write with fluidity but merely reading about it does not give a craftsman the level of skill he had. You have to do it.
All potters should bow down to the techniques laid down by Deck.
Many of his glaze recipes are printed in his book but as previously stated that's only half of replicating his work.
By 1887 many other companies had formulated their own Persian Blue but it was thought it was derived from inspiration of Theodore Deck.
Long before I know Le Bleu Deck I knew Lachenal Blue from my buying trips to France.
I have an unavoidable attraction to its distinctive velvet sheen. I did not notice so much at first the patterns of deck mixing these in my mind with traditional Iznik pieces. I have purchased pieces by Lachenal that may have been from Deck's own atelier by style.
I do not own La Fiaence yet but the inspiration from which I choose to write, is from the well researched account of Deck's work by Peter Hyland for the Northern Ceramics Society Journal Volume 33.
Peter writes about Deck's move into Gold ground inspired by seeing the mosaics in St marks in Venice where he exhibited in 1873.
He tells us how he mixes glaze and creates lustre, texture and even the way he applies. Yes if it was that easy.
The 1880's sees more of his Chinese ware accompanied by Japanese.
In 1878 Deck was nominated Officier de la legion d'Honneur.
In 1880 he exhibited a flambe glaze by a reduction firing.
Sevres were conduction flambe experiments by official ministry. The Commission de Perfectionment that had been set up in 1872 described Deck's 20 exhibits as remarkable and unforgettable.
In 1887 he was offered the post of Art Director at Sevres on the departure of Charles Lauth at the age of 64. He felt he had to accept even with ill health.
Xavier his brother was entrusted with the day to day running of production.
Deck, a practical man found it hard to cope with the tradition and management structure at Sevres. The aftermath of Lauth's departure saw him caught up in the middle of politics at Sevres.
He was accused of using his postion to enhance his own factory, but he stook at it exhibiting his Grosse Porcelaine in the 1889 Exposition Universalle.
He died in May 1891. His remarkable brother Xavier continued the business and exhibited at London's Grafton galleries in 1893, in Paris 1896 and in Brussels 1897, all with success.
Without Deck's innovation it did not move with the times into, art Nouveau that cut across Europe at blistering speed. Xavier died in 1904 and the pottery closed. It was demolished two years later.

As a national figure Theodore was given the honour of burial in Montparnasse cemetry where so many of Frances cultural innovators were buried.
In 2013 he was featured on a postage stamp.
Decks gravestone was designed by Auguste Bartholdi, who designed the statue of liberty. It incorporated faience panels in Deck Bleu and was inscribed 'erpuit coelo lumen'-translated it reads.
“He snatched the light from the heavens”.
The headstone was encrusted with a portrait medallion by Ferdinand Levillian.
There were other potters of course but they must all acknowledge Theodore Deck.







Thursday 4 July 2013

The Millau Viaduct-One My Favourite Things

 I first travelled to La Belle France in 1993 and spent quite a while there.
That's where I really got my buzz for hunting down art and antiques in places in towns, that, at the time, had never had an Englishman in. I loved it I was like a grown up kid on a treasure hunt.
I realised this is what i wanted to do.






What a chore it was, heading down to the South of France towards Montpellier it was like driving on the old Snake Pass.

This would be 1993 and plans were underway to connect the Languedoc region up with the North, the A9 was under construction, which made it worse because the roadwork’s created extra delays while huge wagons curled around mountainous terrain where no vehicles should go.
Driving for a day sometimes you would not see a soul it was like the land that time forgot.

Millau (pronounced like a cats Meow) was a nightmare.

It is one of the most beautiful places in France.

The town has a holiday feel, surrounded by mountains the hang gliders would drift down from the craggy ledges like little coloured spots on a sky blue canvass, slowly drifting gently into sight on the breeze.

Campers would pitch tents next to the river that meandered through the valley.

I used to watch the petrol gauge in my transit visibly empty and I would cringe at the juice it would take just to get back up through the mountainous pass that was the only way to get through this region for me, and everyone else.
In the summer with the stifling heat and without air conditioning it was a particularly challenging routine.
Traffic jams don’t suit the French.
You only need one Frenchman to honk his horn and they all start, and you cant even ball at them to shut up because that starts world war three.
I have spent hours cooking in my tin can behind a lorry full of cement or livestock crawling on the limit of about 20 miles an hour.

I used to try and do it between twelve and two p.m as only mad frogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun
Passing a lorry on a narrow mountainous road is a hazardous affair. Especially when you are in the wrong place, or the wrong side of the car.
First you sneak your head over to the left of the car, to check if the coast is clear to overtake.
Only to have it almost lopped off by a crazy French person doing the free roll down the other side, as if been set free, after his crawl up behind Le Camion.

That’s where I learnt half of my French with my cassette ablaze in the car “Repeat after me ......Ou est. La Cathedral…sil vous plait” and Quell Heure est I’ll” and other stupid sentences that I never ever needed.
It’s also where I learnt to swear.
 Expletives are soon picked up on a French road when you are sat on a red hot seat stewing in 98 degrees, when all you want to do is get to a hotel and freshen up, or better still get to the sea.
On one trip I rolled down the mountainous path and right into an Opel garage at the foot of the pass to have them all laugh at the diesel filter on the Vauxhall Astra  I had just bought from Penny Lane Motors, who are not recommended by me.
 Yes it looked like it should have been an air filter in a fish tank. I give them a right telling off when I got back.
I had been through Millau 50 times and then one day I noticed on the horizon the strangest thing.
There were poles being erected. Not just any old poles, they were like stilts that were springing up they were like skyscrapers, massive things, growing out of the earth.
Even in the distance you could see the scale of them.
The next time there was another few, and then the penny dropped when as if by magic a concrete carpet was being laid across them one at a time.
 This was not possible I would say it defied gravity. It couldn't be possible to build a structure so light and simple that high.
Surely it couldn’t work, and yes, it was a bridge under construction.
Sometimes it would be half covered in mist other times it would be a silhouette as bold as brass against the hue.
 I would look every time as I travelled past on that horrid road to see the progress.
 It must be one of the wonders of the world if they can pull this off I would say.
And they did pull it off and it was opened.
Designed by Foster and Partners but erected by Frenchmen it is a remarkable feat of engineering that shows us British up.
http://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/millau-viaduct/
Click on the above link for a full history of the feat.
The British designed it but we would not have the nerve to build it. It’s the sort of feat that built the Seven Wonders of the World.
Yes we will put the A75 between two mountains some one probably quipped in jest, but they did it.
Not only did they have the nerve to build it, they made it so beautiful and with as little concrete that is physically possible.
They made it float as lightly on what looks like mid-air. The thin air that the hang gliders gently fall from atop a ridge on the other side of town.
Its suspension defies gravity.
If you build it light it will hang light.
The first time I drove across it was worth every centime of the ten euro or so they charge.
I just had to stop at the viewing platform, with a café, and eat a packet of biscuits.
It seems to have become a shrine for people to wonder at the feat of engineering that all French people should be proud of. A pic-nic area with distinction.

I find it hard to put into words what is so good about it, other than its simplicity.
All brilliant design should make you wonder why it is good not state the obvious as journalists are paid to do. You do not need to write pages about it. Just look at it.

It has alleviated the traffic queues.

But now the views down to the valley of the River Tarn directly below the viaduct and the green forests that border it, are over, all too soon and you hanker for more.

In no time at all, unless you stop, you are on your merry way dreaming of the cool blue of the Med, as you should have done in the first place.
I don’t know how many awards it has won but it gets my award for sheer audacity and undertaking and beauty.
If you drive down to the south of France try and go over the Millau Viaduct.
It would be daft not to jump at the opportunity to traverse two mountains suspended hundreds of feet in the air on a slither of tarmac held up by slender sections of wire above a beautiful valley.
Its not Bijou and its not as if you can put it in your pocket, but still, it is one of my favourite things.