Faience

I have seen lots of faience at antique shows, but very very few creamers (and I seldom if ever find any on the web either). Thus I have only a small number of them, and know very little about their history or for that matter about the different manufacturers.

These two would appear to be typical Faience. The larger creamer bears what I believe to be the mark of Alfred Renoleau (1854-1930), of the Renoleau Faiencerie; they are still producing Faience. The smaller creamer is unmarked, but has “St Malo” in a banner on the right side of the neck…presumably a souvenir.
	This creamer comes (via eBay) from an antique dealer in Lisse, the Netherlands, who indicated that it was "possibly Fourmaintreau Desvres, circa 1890” (and could provide no further information). A web article from ‘Arts and Antiques in Florida’, authored by John Beers, notes that “Desvres, situated in north central France, has been a pottery center since early times, having excavated pottery kilns from the Roman era. In the 1870’s the heyday of Desvres pottery began as the Formaintraux family of potters perfected their craft in the style and manor of old Rouen. Their retail operations provided cachepots, jardinières, plates, candlesticks, miniatures, and other decorative items. Desvres pottery is known for a creamy white background decorated with bright “Delft” blue, brilliant lemon yellow, iron red and sage green.” I’ve shown the base with its marks, and as always would appreciate help in attribution.

	Well, this isn’t exactly a creamer, but I couldn’t pass it up. It does have a couple holes, even if they’re in the barrel…It bears the mark of a connected “VR”, and the word “France”.
	This isn’t a creamer either, but at least the fill hole and the spigot are in the cow itself. Like the creamer in the first set of pictures, it bears the connected “AR” and “A” which would indicate Alfred Renoleau of Angouleme, and date it to late 19c or early 20c (unless of course it’s a reproduction…several of the web sites indicate that that’s not uncommon for older Faience pieces).
	I have included this modern creamer, of fairly standard shape, in the Faience theme because it is clearly marked “Desvres, France”, with a hand-written “Breiz” and a maker’s mark of a circle with rays with a script “GF” inside. It’s by no means as fancy as the older ones, but looks a lot like much of the fairly modern ‘Quimper faience’ I’ve seen at antique fairs.

From reviews on www.ebay.com, I found that;

“Faience is generally defined as tin glazed earthenware. It is a mixture of local clays to which oxide of tin is added, so that it can become opaque and take on a white color. Hiding the impurities of the underlying clay body, it imitates the fineness of porcelain. A hand painted decoration is added to the clear surface. Faience became popular in Holland, Italy and France in the 17th century.

“The more commonly known European towns important in Faience production in the late 19th and 20th centuries include Blois, CA, Charolles, Desvres, Gien, Luneville, Moustiers, Nevers, Quimper, St Clement and others. Faience ranges from tableware, through jardinieres and fountains, to clocks.

“Faience potteries, or tin-enameled earthenware, date back to ancient times. The actual name "faience" comes from "Faenza", a town in Italy, and was introduced in France in the 16th Century by migrant Italian potters. Earlier on, faience had often been thought to be nothing more than peasant ware, and not appropriate in elegant French chateaus or palaces. However, in the mid 19th Century, France and its royalty fell into financial crises after numerous wars and other national economic disasters.

“The Industrial Revolution in the mid to late 19th Century brought new manufactured products and improved distribution of these goods. A newly emerged middle class sought items of aesthetic beauty for their lives and in their homes. Mass production allowed ordinary people to enjoy luxuries of life in a new era of economic independence.

“The faience pottery of the late 19th and early 20th Century revived a long history of the potters’ art, and embodied an artistic and social statement of the times. The earlier historic decors of Nevers, Rouen, Moustiers, Strasbourg, and Marseilles were captured and reproduced by factories at Quimper, Desvres, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Malicorne and others.”