French porcelain
Encyclopedia
French porcelain has a history spanning a period from the 17th century to the present.
had long been imported from China
, and was a very expensive and desired luxury. Chinese porcelains were treasured, collected from the time of Francis I
, and sometimes adorned with elaborate mountings of precious metal to protect them and enhance their beauty. Huge amounts especially of silver
were sent from Europe to China to pay for the desired Chinese porcelain wares, and numerous attempts were made to duplicate the material.
It was at the Nevers manufactory
that Chinese-style blue and white wares were produced for the first time in France, with production running between 1650 and 1680. Chinese styles would then be taken up by factories in Normandy
, especially following the foundation of the French East India Company
in 1664.
The first soft-paste porcelain in France was developed in an effort to imitate high-valued Chinese hard-paste porcelain
, and follow the attempts of Medici porcelain
in the 16th century. The first soft-paste frit
porcelain, was produced at the Rouen manufactory
in 1673, in order to mimic "la véritable porcelaine de Chine" ("The true porcelain of China"),, and became known as "Porcelaine française". The technique of producing the new material was discovered by the Rouen potter
Louis Poterat; his license to make "faience and porcelain" was taken out in 1673, signed by the king and Jean-Baptiste Colbert
The soft porcelain used blue designs of the type already used in the faiences of the period. Dr. Martin Lister
reported from his voyage to Paris, printed in 1698, that a manufacture of porcelain "as white and translucid as the one that came from the East" was in full operation at Saint-Cloud
.
The French lexicographer Jacques Savary des Brûlons
wrote in 1722 about these first experiments in his Dictionnaire universel du commerce:
"Fifteen or twenty years ago an attempt was made in France to copy Chinese porcelain : the first attempts made in Rouen were quite successful, (...) these faience objects from new factories are not ranked as French faience - this is the genuine porcelain invented by the French during the last few years and manufactured successively in Rouen, Passy near Paris, and then in Saint Cloud."
Colbert
set up the Royal Factory of Saint-Cloud in 1664 in order to make copies (In the original "Contre-façons", i.e. "Fakes") of "Indian-style" porcelain. Saint-Cloud became a very important manufactory for the new wares.
in 1686, but the manufacturing secret had remained elusive.
France finally discovered the Chinese technique of hard-paste porcelain
through the efforts of the Jesuit Father Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles
between 1712 and 1722. The letters sent to Father Orry in Paris were first published by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde
in 1735, with English editions appearing in 1736 or 1738. The letters were later again published by Abbé Jean-Baptiste Grosier
in his General Description of China. D'Entrecolles also sent material specimens to Europe, which were analysed by Réaumur
, and led to the establishment of the Sèvres Manufactory once equivalent materials were found in Europe.
After 1730, polychrome porcelain also came to be produced, often in imitation of Chinese polychrome styles of porcelain, such as the "Famille rose" types. The Japanese Kakiemon
style of Arita porcelain, Japan
, known as "Fleurs indiennes" ("Flowers of the Indies") was also used as an inspiration, especially in Saint-Cloud porcelain
and Chantilly porcelain
. A patent granted to the Chantilly factory in 1735 by Louis XV
specifically describes the right to make porcelain façon de Japon ("in imitation of the porcelain of Japan").
Meanwhile, the manufacturing technique of soft-paste porcelain seems to have been transmitted to England by French Huguenot
refugees. The first soft-paste in England was demonstrated by Thomas Briand to the Royal Society
in 1742 and is believed to have been based on the Saint-Cloud formula.
started to display original French inspiration towards its last years of operation, after which the abundant, varied, and original productions of Sèvres porcelain continued the trend.
Porcelain production further developed with Limoges porcelain
, a type of hard-paste porcelain
produced by factories near the city of Limoges
, France
. The manufacturing of hard-paste porcelain in Limoges was established in 1771 following the discovery of local supplies of kaolin and a material similar to petuntse
in the economically distressed area at Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche
, near Limoges.
In parallel, soft-paste porcelain continued to be manufactured however, as it was less expensive to produce.
Soft-paste blue-and-white porcelain
Chinese porcelainChinese porcelain
Chinese ceramic ware shows a continuous development since the pre-dynastic periods, and is one of the most significant forms of Chinese art. China is richly endowed with the raw materials needed for making ceramics. The first types of ceramics were made during the Palaeolithic era...
had long been imported from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and was a very expensive and desired luxury. Chinese porcelains were treasured, collected from the time of Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
, and sometimes adorned with elaborate mountings of precious metal to protect them and enhance their beauty. Huge amounts especially of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
were sent from Europe to China to pay for the desired Chinese porcelain wares, and numerous attempts were made to duplicate the material.
It was at the Nevers manufactory
Nevers manufactory
The Nevers manufactory was a French manufacturing center for faience in the city of Nevers. A porcelain manufactury in Nevers was also mentioned in 1844 by Alexandre Brongniart, but little is known about it....
that Chinese-style blue and white wares were produced for the first time in France, with production running between 1650 and 1680. Chinese styles would then be taken up by factories in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, especially following the foundation of the French East India Company
French East India Company
The French East India Company was a commercial enterprise, founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies in colonial India....
in 1664.
The first soft-paste porcelain in France was developed in an effort to imitate high-valued Chinese hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature. It was first made in China around the 9th century....
, and follow the attempts of Medici porcelain
Medici porcelain
Medici porcelain was the first successful attempt in Europe to make imitations of Chinese porcelain, although it didn't managed to make true porcelain. The experimental manufactory housed in the Casino of San Marco in Florence existed between 1575 and 1587 under the patronage of Francesco I de'...
in the 16th century. The first soft-paste frit
Frit
Frit is a ceramic composition that has been fused in a special fusing oven, quenched to form a glass, and granulated. Frits form an important part of the batches used in compounding enamels and ceramic glazes; the purpose of this pre-fusion is to render any soluble and/or toxic components insoluble...
porcelain, was produced at the Rouen manufactory
Rouen manufactory
The Rouen manufactory was an early French manufactory for faience and soft-paste porcelain, located in Rouen, Normandy.-Soft-paste porcelain :...
in 1673, in order to mimic "la véritable porcelaine de Chine" ("The true porcelain of China"),, and became known as "Porcelaine française". The technique of producing the new material was discovered by the Rouen potter
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
Louis Poterat; his license to make "faience and porcelain" was taken out in 1673, signed by the king and Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
The soft porcelain used blue designs of the type already used in the faiences of the period. Dr. Martin Lister
Martin Lister
Martin Lister FRS was an English naturalist and physician.-Life:Lister was born at Radcliffe, near Buckingham, the son of Sir Martin Lister MP for Brackley in the Long Parliament and his wife Susan Temple daughter of Sir Alexander Temple. Lister was connected to a number of well known individuals...
reported from his voyage to Paris, printed in 1698, that a manufacture of porcelain "as white and translucid as the one that came from the East" was in full operation at Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud porcelain
Saint-Cloud porcelain was a type of soft-paste porcelain produced in the French town of Saint-Cloud from the late 17th to the mid 18th century.-Foundation:...
.
The French lexicographer Jacques Savary des Brûlons
Jacques Savary des Brûlons
Jacques Savary des Brûlons was the French Inspector General of the Manufactures for the King at the Paris Customs in the 18th century, and a lexicographer who wrote the Dictionnaire universel de commerce....
wrote in 1722 about these first experiments in his Dictionnaire universel du commerce:
"Fifteen or twenty years ago an attempt was made in France to copy Chinese porcelain : the first attempts made in Rouen were quite successful, (...) these faience objects from new factories are not ranked as French faience - this is the genuine porcelain invented by the French during the last few years and manufactured successively in Rouen, Passy near Paris, and then in Saint Cloud."
Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
set up the Royal Factory of Saint-Cloud in 1664 in order to make copies (In the original "Contre-façons", i.e. "Fakes") of "Indian-style" porcelain. Saint-Cloud became a very important manufactory for the new wares.
Asian polychrome designs
Louis XIV had received 1,500 pieces of porcelain from the Siamese Embassy to FranceSiamese embassy to France (1686)
The Siamese embassy to France in 1686 was the second such mission from the Kingdom of Siam . The embassy was sent by King Narai and led by ambassador Kosa Pan...
in 1686, but the manufacturing secret had remained elusive.
France finally discovered the Chinese technique of hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature. It was first made in China around the 9th century....
through the efforts of the Jesuit Father Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles
Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles
Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles was a French Jesuit priest, who discovered the Chinese technique of manufacturing "true" or hard-paste porcelain through his investigations in China at Jingdezhen with the help of Chinese Catholic converts between 1712 and 1722, during the rule of the Kangxi...
between 1712 and 1722. The letters sent to Father Orry in Paris were first published by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde
Jean-Baptiste Du Halde
Jean-Baptiste Du Halde was a French Jesuit historian specializing in China. Although he had not gone to China, he collected seventeen Jesuit missionaries' reports and provided encyclopedic survey on Chinese history, culture and society....
in 1735, with English editions appearing in 1736 or 1738. The letters were later again published by Abbé Jean-Baptiste Grosier
Jean-Baptiste Grosier
Jean-Baptiste Grosier was a French Abbé who published in 1788 his General Description of China.-Works:*De la Chine: ou Description générale de cet empire, rédigée d'après les mémoires de la mission de Pé-Kin Jean-Baptiste Grosier-Notes:...
in his General Description of China. D'Entrecolles also sent material specimens to Europe, which were analysed by Réaumur
Réaumur
The Réaumur scale , also known as the "octogesimal division", is a temperature scale in which the freezing and boiling points of water are set to 0 and 80 degrees respectively...
, and led to the establishment of the Sèvres Manufactory once equivalent materials were found in Europe.
After 1730, polychrome porcelain also came to be produced, often in imitation of Chinese polychrome styles of porcelain, such as the "Famille rose" types. The Japanese Kakiemon
Kakiemon
Kakiemon wares were produced at the factories of Arita, Saga Prefecture, Japan from the mid-17th century, with much in common with the Chinese "Famille Verte" style...
style of Arita porcelain, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, known as "Fleurs indiennes" ("Flowers of the Indies") was also used as an inspiration, especially in Saint-Cloud porcelain
Saint-Cloud porcelain
Saint-Cloud porcelain was a type of soft-paste porcelain produced in the French town of Saint-Cloud from the late 17th to the mid 18th century.-Foundation:...
and Chantilly porcelain
Chantilly porcelain
Chantilly porcelain is French soft-paste porcelain produced between 1730 and 1800 by the manufactory of Chantilly in Oise, France.-Foundation:...
. A patent granted to the Chantilly factory in 1735 by Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
specifically describes the right to make porcelain façon de Japon ("in imitation of the porcelain of Japan").
Meanwhile, the manufacturing technique of soft-paste porcelain seems to have been transmitted to England by French Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
refugees. The first soft-paste in England was demonstrated by Thomas Briand to the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
in 1742 and is believed to have been based on the Saint-Cloud formula.
Development of original French designs
After this initial period, up to the end of the 18th century, French porcelain manufactories would progressively abandon their Chinese and Japanese designs, to become more French in character. Vincennes soft-paste porcelainVincennes porcelain
The Vincennes porcelain manufactory was established in 1740 in the disused royal Château de Vincennes, in Vincennes, east of Paris, which was from the start the main market for its wares.-History:...
started to display original French inspiration towards its last years of operation, after which the abundant, varied, and original productions of Sèvres porcelain continued the trend.
Porcelain production further developed with Limoges porcelain
Limoges porcelain
Limoges porcelain designates hard-paste porcelain produced by factories near the city of Limoges, France beginning in the late 18th century, but does not refer to a particular manufacturer.- History :...
, a type of hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature. It was first made in China around the 9th century....
produced by factories near the city of Limoges
Limoges
Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The manufacturing of hard-paste porcelain in Limoges was established in 1771 following the discovery of local supplies of kaolin and a material similar to petuntse
Petuntse
Petuntse , also spelled petunse, is a historic term for a wide range of micaceous or feldspathic rocks. However, all will have been subject to geological decomposition processes that result in a material which, after processing, is suitable as an ingredient in some ceramic formulations...
in the economically distressed area at Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche
Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche
Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.Its name refers to Saint Yrieix .Inhabitants are known as Arédiens.-References:*...
, near Limoges.
In parallel, soft-paste porcelain continued to be manufactured however, as it was less expensive to produce.