Quimper Figurine

SB sends me photos of a 19th c. ceramic figure; a relief-painted scullery maid holding a gold-gilded metal cookpot, and seated on a gold-gilded metal chair. Such an interesting combination of materials here: a pottery figure, glazed and painted, seated on a gilded metal chair. To produce such a piece in the 19th c. took a number of skilled artisans, and the collaboration of two workshops – one a ceramic production shop with a kiln, the other a metalwork shop with the capacity to cast molten metal from a mold. The cost to produce this figure was high for such novelty, for it has no use except as fanciful decoration. The figure is 5.5” tall and 2.5” wide and the composition is in three pieces: one, a French faience figure of the maid, and two, a gold-gilded chair and pot. The workmanship is exquisite because the faience figurine “sits” upon the chair, and the figure “holds” a pot. SB says she cannot find information about this figure, which she purchased from a dealer 15 years ago.

The clothing and furniture design give us a clue to its original location or place of production. The figure is wearing a traditional Breton (France) costume, with the bigoudène headdress. Each region of Breton, whose ethnic origin is Celtic, has a slightly different white lace cap for women. The figure wears a traditional corselette, a shawl and apron. This traditional Breton costume originated only after the French government repealed the Sumptuary Laws in the early 19th c. that had governed a universal style of clothing. Add to this that the fabric produced throughout the 19th c. became less expensive due to Industrial Revolution’s mass production. Each rural region of Breton outdid the next.

The national Breton Costume was born, coincidentally, along with a certain discovery of a type of clay in the region around Quimper in Breton. A method of firing and painting the clay was reinvented, a style that had been known for millennia, called faience. Breton potters specialized in this type of homely figure and this type of glazing. The figure is NOT porcelain, which is fired at a much higher temperature than stoneware; faience is stoneware, but the name faience refers to a white opaque glaze that was made to LOOK like porcelain. Potters would paint the white glaze with enameled colors to emulate hand-painted pure white porcelain. The end product aimed to be a facsimile of a porcelain figure but required far less money to purchase. Porcelain was expensive in the 18th and early 19th c.; faience was not, relatively speaking. 

To achieve that shiny white glaze, an alloy was added: tin. This type of pottery was therefore called tin-glazed ceramic (faience), and was first invented as early as the 9th c. in the Middle East. You might have heard the term Maiolica or Majolica: that is the faience or tin-glazed pottery of Spain and Portugal, and is sometimes used to describe French faience. In the Netherlands, it is called Delftware or Delft Blue. 

France produced the most interesting faience, in my opinion, because the smaller kilns produced such interesting regional country-style wares, such as this Quimper figure. Quimper is famous for its homely peasant girl image on faience dishware, and was widely collected in the early 20th c. The modeling of the metal chair indicates a pared-down version of the Louis 16th c. style of country furniture in France called French Provincial, popular amongst American collectors in the early 20th c.

The modeling on the figure’s face suggests a skilled artisan, and the inclusion of a metal chair and a metal pot into the figurine indicates a collaboration between a metal artisan and a ceramic artisan, and some serious engineering (note the hole on the figure’s underside). This is typical of the mid to the late 19th c. in which the desire for specialized, unique pieces required the creative collaboration of both metal and ceramic artists. A similar collaboration occurred, firstly, in England and Holland in the 18th c. when Chinese porcelain was exported there: the chemical combinations needed to create porcelain were not known in Europe. European silversmiths were hired to create fancy metal armatures around a vessel of rare Chinese porcelain. Likewise, in England in the mid to late 19th c., the collaborative workmanship of both silver and glass artisans created centerpieces of glass or fine porcelain set into silver or bronze doré; these were sold to those that could afford the novelty. The Quimper figure is worth $500.