Thursday, September 8, 2016

Famous Porcelain styles from France 8.5.1976


Two famous porcelain styles from France are portrayed on the two stamps on the FDCs.

(0.80) Strasbourg faience or Strasbourg ware is a form of faience produced by the Strasbourg-Haguenau company in Strasbourg in the 18th century.
The company was founded by a Dutch ceramicist, Charles-Francois Hannong. Charles-Francois was born in Maastricht around 1669 and later married Anne Nikke, daughter of a German pipe-maker, in Cologne. In 1709 they moved to Strasbourg, where Charles-François set up a pipe-making factory. At first he concentrated on producing enamelled earthenware stoves. Around 1720 he was working with Henri Wackenfeld, perfecting these stoves and at the same time making experiments in porcelain, in which they attained a certain success, with great improvements being achieved by succeeding members of the Hannong family. Wackenfeld later left Strasbourg and Charles-Francois continued alone. By 1724, the faience was so successful that Charles-Francois opened a second factory in Haguenau. Eight years later he retired, leaving the family business to his sons, Paul-Antoine and Balthasar, who paid him an annual pension until his death in 1739.
 The Strasbourg technique spawned a number of imitations including the ware of Marseilles, Niderviller, Luneville, St. Clement, Sceaux, Aprey and the majority of the smaller factories in France.
A large collection of this faience is on display in the Musée des Arts décoratifs, Strasbourg. Haguenau's Musée historique and Gertwiller's Musée du pain d'épices also display valuable Hannong faience, as does the Castle "Favorite" on the other side of the Rhine.

(1.20) Sèvres porcelainFrench hard-paste, or true, porcelain as well as soft-paste porcelain (a porcellaneous material rather than true porcelain) made at the royal factory (now the national porcelain factory) of Sèvres, near Versailles, from 1756 until the present; the industry was located earlier at Vincennes. On the decline of Meissen after 1756 from its supreme position as the arbiter of fashion, Sèvres became the leading porcelain factory in Europe. Perhaps the major factor contributing to its success was the patronage of Louis XV’s mistress Madame de Pompadour. It was through her influence that the move was made from Vincennes to Sèvres, where she had a château, and through her that some of the foremost artists of the time, such as the painter François Boucher and the sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet (who directed Sèvres modeling between 1757 and 1766), became involved in the enterprise. It was after her that rose Pompadour was named in 1757; this was one of many new background colours developed at Sèvres, one of which, bleu de roi (c. 1757), has passed into the dictionary as a universal term.

 Thank you Merja for these two lovely FDCs.

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