Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/654

Rh Rouen. 630 mostly Gothic in feeling especially those made at Avignon, Savigny, and Beauvais ; the reliefs on the older French ware are very delicate and sharp, and often of great decorative effect Nevers was one of the chief manufactories of enamelled ware ; from about 1570 to the end of the 17th century it produced mostly poor copies of the later sort of Italian majolica. After that a strong Oriental influ ence set in, and a peculiar ware with a deep -blue enamel ground was made, very like that produced by the Venetian potters. Some of this, painted in white enamel only, with Persian designs, is effective and pleasant in colour (see fig. 62). Other pieces have flowers, treated in a more realistic way, painted in harsh yellow, green, and red, quite out of harmony with the rich blue ground. J. Bourdu, a potter work ing at Nevers from 1602 to 1620, signed his ware with mark No. 16 ; another, named H. Borne, used No. 17. During the 18th century Nevers chiefly produced pottery of Chinese forms, painted in blue with Chinese figures and flowers, and also a large quantity of pottery FlG-62 ._E W er of Nevers pottery; painted in many colours with coarse. M darL designs somewhat after the Delft bl en melled d Per. style. The 1 / tn-century enamelled. ,, pottery of Rouen is the finest of the later French wares. It is mostly painted in rich red and blue only, with very minute and well-designed arabesques of geometrical form, adapted, not copied, with great skill and taste from Oriental de signs (see fig. 63). Very large plates, wine-coolers, hanging cis terns, and ewers are made of it. One very rare variety has the blue and red pattern on a deep orange ground, but it is very inferior in artistic effect to that on the white ground. The finest specimens were made before 1700 ; after that time the painting became coarser. Copies of Chinese wares No. 16. No. 17. Potters marks. FIG. 63. Disli of Rouen enamelled pottery, painted in blues and deep red. were also made at Rouen in the 18th century, all gaudy in colour, and mostly poor in execution. The Rouen Museum lias the best collection of its native ware ; there are very fine specimens also in Mous- the South Kensington Museum. During the 18th century Moustiers tiers, &c. produced some very decorative pottery, painted in various shades of blue, with delicate wreaths, masks, and arabesques, somewhat after the Rouen fashion. Other colours were also used in very minute [FRENCH, GERMAN. patterns, but the simple blue and white is the best. Blue and white pottery with fairly good designs was also manufactured at St Cloud, Sceaux, and Saint Amand, as well as many other French towns, during the first half of the 18th century. Most, however, of the French wares of this date are little better than imitations of porce lain, and their decoration feeble copies of Chinese or Japanese designs. Literature. For Oiron ware, see Detange, Recueil tie ... Faience. . . dite de Henri II., 1861 ; Fillcm, Les Faiences d Oiron, 1803 (best work); Tainturier, Les Faiences dite de Henri II., IStiO. For Rouen ware, see Delisle, Faience de Rouen, 1865 ; Puttier, Histoire de la Faience de Rouen, 1870 ; Ris-Paquot, Faiences de Rouen, 1870. For other French potteries the reader may consult Clement de Ris, Faiences Frongaises, Musee du Louvre, 1871 ; Mareschal, Faiences Anciennes et Modernes, 1807 ; Tainturier, Porcelaine et Faience (Alsace et Lor raine), 1868 ; Houdoy, La Ceramique Lilloise, 1869 ; Uavillier, Faience de Moustiers, 1863 ; De Segange, IM Faience de Nevers, 1863 ; Pouy, Les Faiences d Origins Picarde, 1874 ; Fillon, L Art de Terre chez les Poitevins, 1864. The various volumes of the Gaz. des Beaux-Arts contain many valuable articles on the whole subject. SECTION XIII. MEDIEVAL GERMAN, DUTCH, etc. Though little is known of the early ceramic history of Us. Germany, it is certain that the application of a tin enamel tin and enamel colours was known to the potters of that en country even in the 13th century. Some plaques, with heads in relief, painted in various colours over a white enamel ground, still exist at Leipsic ; they were made for wall-decoration, and are said to be of the year 1207. At Breslau there is a monument of enamelled clay to Henry IV. of Silesia, made about 1300. According to one story, the use of a white tin enamel was perfected at Schele- stadt by an Alsacian potter who died in 1283. Other examples exist, though few in number, at various places in Germany, sufficient to show an early acquaintance with the method of producing enamelled ware, which, however, seems to have fallen into disuse, and during the 15th and 16th centuries to have been superseded by the fine sorts of stoneware, in the manufacture of which the German potters were so widely celebrated. Grey stoneware, richly decorated with delicate stamped St patterns in relief, and generally, though not always, W covered with a lead glaze, was produced in great quan tities in Germany, Flanders, and Holland from the end of the 14th century till quite modern times, and was very largely imported into England and France. Much of this stoneware (called by the French &quot; gres de Flandres &quot;) is decorated with great delicacy and taste ; its tint, grey, brown, or cream-white, is very soft and agreeable. The earlier specimens have reliefs of a Gothic character, always stamped with great crispness and sharpness, not the least blunted by the process of firing ; many have elaborate coats of arms, or branches of simple foliage, which spread gracefully over the surface of the vessel; others have bands of figures, very minutely treated in slight relief. Another method of decoration was by incised patterns, impressed from relief-stamps ; sometimes, as was the case with the Oiron ware, bookbinders dies were used for forming such patterns in the soft clay. Some of the cream-white ware is left unglazecl, but most kinds have a vitreous lead glaze, either colourless or mixed with oxide of cobalt or manganese. These two colours, indigo- blue and purple-brown, are often used to pick out the relief-patterns, thus making the design more effective. Owing to the use of old stamps and traditional designs much of this pottery has patterns considerably older than the ware itself, the date being frequently introduced among ornaments which look very much earlier than they really are. Fig. 64 shows a common form of jug, called a &quot; greybeard &quot; from the grotesque head modelled on the neck. The body of the jug is covered with very graceful scroll-work of oak branches in low relief. Another curious variety of German pottery, consisting Ii &quot; chiefly of tankards and jugs, made to imitate enamelled 11 metal-work, was manufactured mostly at Kreussen in ^. Bavaria. The body is of hard red clay, covered with a e , dark -brown enamel, the designs in slight relief being taken from the Augsburg or Briot style of metal-work,