A much better class of pottery both in manufacture and design is the famous Rouen ware, made in the town of that name in Normandy. In the year 1644 Edme Poterat obtained a licence to make and sell fayence in the province of Normandy.

This monopoly did not last long, for we find that in 1673 his son, Louis Poterat, obtained another licence, and from that time a new development takes place in the ornament that is 30 characteristic of Rouen ware. The greater part of this ornament is composed of a scallop form of setting out, with alternating compositions of ornamental flowers, called lambrequins, and baskets of ornamental flowers that repeat at intervals around the border of plates or trays; light pendentives and wreaths of artificial flowers are painted in a lighter tone, and occur between the richer lambrequins (Fig. 54). Richly ornamented coats-of-arms, or baskets of flowers and cornucopias, occupy the centres (Fig. 55). The beautiful plate in the Kensington Museum (Fig. 56) is unique in Rouen ware in having amorini, or cupids, in the centre. All of the foregoing examples are painted in blue of different shades on the white enamel, or sometimes on yellow ochre grounds. Indian red colour and a warm reddish yellow is sometimes also used. The ornament is pseudo-Chinese, and is a Norman development of Oriental forms with some Italian influences which are reminiscences of the decoration brought by the Conrade brothers from Genoa to Nevers.

Some of the Rouen ware is decorated with a ray formation on which the ornament is painted on a light or dark ground. This is known as the style rayannant. The drawing of these patterns is always very careful and correct, the latter often being copies of the printed decoration of the books of that period. Later on the decoration became of a freer type, with bouquets of artificial flowers, and in the eighteenth century the Rocaille or Rococo element began to creep in, and the Rouen ware developed from the camaien blue style of decoration to a polychrome style.

The Chinese Element In Design

The Chinese Element In Design became everywhere in the ascendant, not only in late Rouen ware, but in the pottery of every country in Europe, and remains more or less in the work of to-day. Some of the late Rouen ware is not so bizarre in its decoration as many other French and European styles of the same period. Fig. 57 shows the Chinese influence, but is in better taste than the majority of contemporary designs.

As a style decays the colour as a rule becomes more gaudy, which applies to Rouen ware as to other varieties of fayence. The "Cornucopia pattern" belongs to the decadence period: this is full of unrestrained liberty both in form and colour. It ought to be mentioned that Louis Poterat, of Rouen, first discovered the secret of making the Chinese soft porcelain (pÆ'te tendre) in France. Several pieces of this Rouen porcelain are preserved in the Museums at SÅ vres and at Limoges.

The Rouen School Of Decoration

The Rouen School Of Decoration has influenced modern pottery designers in France, Germany, Holland, and England, more than any other school; but unfortunately they all copied its later defects with greater zeal than in taking lessons from its earlier excellencies.

Rouen ware was imitated in the Sinceny pottery, but this pottery was made by some workmen who had formerly belonged to Rouen, and established themselves at Sinceny in 1713, and copied the Rouen ware so closely that the copies have often been mistaken for the latter ware.

At Paris, St. Cloud, Quimper, and Lille, imitations of Rouen ware have been attempted with success. The St. Cloud pottery is of a slatey blue colour. The pottery of Lille is a close imitation of Rouen ware, as the plate (Fig. 58) clearly shows.

Moustiers, in the south of France, was an important centre for enamelled pottery works, where a style of decoration was used that was a mixture of the Italian Urbino and the School of Rouen, the borders of the plates having the Rouen lambrequins, and the centres having figure subjects and landscapes, or, as in the later work, grotesques and ornament after the French artists, Callot and Berain.

The colour was in shades of a deep blue (Fig. 59).

Pierre ClÅ rissy (1728) was the name of the first artist and also of his nephew, who continued the works after him in Moustiers.

Polychrome Decoration

Polychrome Decoration became common at a later date, when some Moustiers workmen, who had been to the Alcora potteries in Spain, introduced the Spanish style of colouring, then in great fashion, which consisted of bright orange yellow, light green, and blue outlines. The later Moustiers ware is decorated with festoons and ovals with figures or busts painted in them.

Marseilles Fayence

Marseilles Fayence is of a delicate and pure enamel, and is painted with flowers, shell fish, and insects, etc, which as a rule are thrown on or disposed in an irregular sort of way. Much of the decoration was Chinese or Rouen imitations, and little landscapes painted in red cama*¹en; gold was sometimes used in the stalks of the flowers.

Strasburg Pottery

Strasburg Pottery, though classed as French, owed a good deal of its process of manufacture and general character to German methods of manipulation and decorative processes, as German potters were mostly employed in the works.

The great difference was in the mode of decoration, the latter being applied on the fired surface of the enamel in the Strasburg wares; whereas in the wares of the other French potteries that have just been considered the decoration was applied to the unbaked and consequently absorbent ground. The latter was the more artistic method, and the former, or German method, allowed a wider range of the artist's palette, and admitted of greater delicacy of execution, but was more harsh in effect, and did not incorporate the colours with the enamel in a way that an absorbent ground or unbaked enamel would do.

The name of Charles Hannong is connected with an early pottery of Strasburg, which was mostly a manufactory of earthenware stoves. This pottery was founded in 1709. In 1721 Hannong and a German porcelain worker, who was taken into partnership by the former, began to make porcelain, but after a short existence under the sons of Hannong this pottery was closed.

Statuettes, Clocks, Dinner And Dessert Services

Statuettes, Clocks, Dinner And Dessert Services were made in Strasburg glazed earthen ware, with modelled and painted decoration. The colouring and decoration was of the prevalent Rococo, bright and clear; flowers of all kinds, and Chinese pictures, were imitated mostly on white grounds (Fig. 60).

Fig. 60. Plate, Strasburg Ware.

Fig. 54. Plateau, Rouen Ware. (S. K. M).

Fig. 55. Tray, Rouen Ware. (S. K. M).

Fig. 56. Plateau, Rouen Ware. (S. K. M).

Fig. 57. Dish, Rouen Ware. (S. K. M).

Fig. 58. Plate, Lille Ware.

Fig. 59. Plate, with Stag Hunt; Moustiers Ware.