Faience, a refined earthenware, is tin-glazed, so-called because tin was added to the lead-based glaze in order to produce an opaque white surface. French faience potters developed many different decorative styles, some very elaborate and others quite simple, for use on more common plates and other vessels.
Canadian and American archaeologists have developed several methods of classifying the faience exported to 18th-century French colonies in North America. The type names provided here are from a revision of John Walthall's classification ("Faience in French Colonial Illinois," Historical Archaeology 25 (1991):80-105).
There are two major kinds of faience: |
Pottery illustrated in L'Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné, by Denis Diderot and Jean-le-Rond d'Alembert, 1751
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| Faïence blanche has white tin-glaze covering all surfaces. |
Faïence brune vessels have white tin-glazed interiors and brown lead-glazed exterior surfaces. |
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Faïence Brune: Rouen Polychrome
Most faïence brune was made in Normandy, particularly in and around Rouen. The lead- glazed exteriors withstood heat better than tin glaze, permitting the colonists to heat these plates and platters before serving a meal. The name Rouen Polychrome is applied to this style of decoration. Both of these sherds were found at the Dog River site (1MB161). |
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| Faïence Blanche:
Brittany Blue on White
All of the other illustrated sherds are faïence blanche. Many of these styles originated in northern France, too. The simple blue rim bands found on the Brittany Blue on White type are still seen today on pottery made at the town of Quimper in Brittany. |
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| Normandy Plain
Undecorated vessels are collectively known as the Normandy Plain type. They date primarily to the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when they were gradually replaced by the growing popularity of blue-on-white designs drawn from Chinese porcelain prototypes. |
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Normandy Blue on White
Rouen potters created a "Lambrequin-style" near the end of the reign of Louis XIV, with elaborate pendant leaf motifs evocative of baroque drapery. These specimens from the Port Dauphin Village site (1MB221) exemplify the leafy lambrequin design on the top sherd, and a rare maker's mark on the base of a fragmentary teacup. |
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| By the mid-1700s, Claude Guillibaud's factory in Rouen had popularized polychrome designs and new border patterns borrowed from Chinese porcelain, as seen on these plates. |
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St. Cloud Polychrome
A variant of Guillibaud-style borders has the blue pattern outlined with darker pigments, often black or dark blue. This type, called St. Cloud Polychrome after the pottery town of St. Cloud near Paris, is decorated with the flame-like motif or a hatched border. |
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Seine Polychrome
A wide variety of polychrome floral patterns are grouped together under the type Seine Polychrome, named for the popularity of those designs at Parisian potteries. But these styles are poorly known and may derive from other regions of France, such as the La Rochelle area. These examples, from the Old Mobile site (1MB94), are pieces of a salt cellar and a pitcher. |
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| Southern French potters created decorative styles easily distinguished from these northern patterns. To the potteries of Moustiers are attributed these sorts of delicate flowery and geometrical borders, but the influential style was also widely copied. |
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| Common wares produced in the Moustiers region often have this border pattern. The yellow/orange hue is typical of pottery from Provence. |
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Also see: "La faïence de Place-Royale," by Nicole Genêt, La collection Patrimoines, Dossier 45 (Québec, 1996) |
