Rouen faience

The decoration of the best Rouen faience was very well-executed, with intricate designs in several styles, typically centred on ornament, with relatively small figures, if any.

[1] There are records of "faience in the Italian manner" (maiolica) being made in Rouen in 1526,[2] according to Moon by Masséot Abaquesne,[3] whose workshop was certainly active by the 1540s.

In 1644, Nicolas Poirel, sieur (lord) of Grandval, obtained a fifty-year royal monopoly over the production of faience in Normandy.

[9] By 1670, Poterat received part of the large and prestigious commissions for Louis XIV's Trianon de porcelaine, now lost.

[11] Before the end of the century Rouen faience, apparently led by Louis Poterat (d. 1696), had developed the lambrequin style of decoration, a "baroque scalloped border pattern",[12] with "pendant lacework ornament, drapes and scrollwork",[13] adapted from ornamental styles used in other types of decorative art, including book-bindings, lace and metalwork, and printed versions of them in design-books.

[16] In 1717, the head of the Poterat family unsuccessfully asked the government to reinstate the monopoly, and suppress six other factories then working in Rouen.

[20] From 1720, Nicolas Fouquay (or Fouquet, d. 1742) bought the main Poterat faiencerie, and was responsible for much of the best work, including a small number of exceptional polychrome busts on stands.

A set of the Four Seasons which were made around 1730 for the cabinet (study) of Fouquay's house are now in the Louvre; originally an Apollo now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London completed the group.

[23] The lambrequin style was originally normally only in blue on white, although a piece dated 1699 already has broderie decoration with a Chinese subject in the centre, using four colours.

[24] By 1720, polychrome painting was becoming dominant, using the limited range of colours available for the grand feu technique of a single high-temperature firing.

A service of some 200 pieces in this style was commissioned by Tsar Peter III of Russia as a gift for his favourite Count Golovin around 1760.

[33] As elsewhere in France, by the eve of the Revolution, the Rouen industry was suffering from the effect of the commercial treaty with Britain of 1786, by which English imports of high-quality, and relatively cheap creamware only had a tariff of 12%.