Faience
For the architectural material, see Glazed architectural terra-cotta. For the ceramics of Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley, see Egyptian faienceFaience or
faïence is the conventional name in
English for fine tin-glazed
earthenware on a delicate pale buff body. The invention of a pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an
oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of
pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A
kiln capable of producing high temperatures exceeding 1000
° C was required to achieve this result (see
pottery), the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions.
Ancient "faience"
Main article Egyptian faience.The term "faience" has been extended to include finely glazed ceramic beads found in
Egypt as early as
4000 BC and at sites in the
Indus Valley Civilization.
Faience in the Western Mediterranean
The Moors brought the technique of tin-glazed earthenware to
Al-Andalus, where the art of metallic glazes was perfected. From Andalusia it was exported, either directly or via the
Balearic Islands["Majolica" derives from Majorca, an early depot for the re-export of tin-glazed earthenware to Italy] to Italy. In Italy, locally produced tin-glazed earthenwares, initiated in the fourteenth century, reached a peak in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, represented by the Italian faience called
Majolica. The name
faience is simply the French name for
Faenza, in the
Romagna near
Ravenna, Italy, where a painted majolica ware on a clean, opaque pure-white ground, was produced for export as early as the fifteenth century.
"Majolica" (pronounced and also spelled "maiolica") is a garbled version of "Maiorica", for the
island of
Majorca, which was a transshipping point for refined tin-glazed earthenwares shipped to
Italy from the
kingdom of Aragon in Spain at the close of the
Middle Ages. This type of Spanish pottery owed much to its
Moorish inheritance.
French and northern European faïence
The first northerners to imitate the tin-glazed earthenwares being imported from Italy were the
Dutch.
Delftware is a kind of faience, made at potteries round Delft in
Holland, characteristically decorated in blue on white, in imitation of the blue-and-white
porcelain that was imported from
China in the early
sixteenth century, but it quickly developed its own recognisably Dutch décor.
Dutch potters in northern (and Protestant) Germany established German centres of faience: the first manufactories in Germany were opened at
Hanau (1661) and Heusenstamm (1662), soon moved to nearby
Frankfurt-am-Main.
In France, centres of faience manufacturing developed from the early
eighteenth century led in
1690 by
Quimper in Brittany [
1], which today possesses an interesting museum devoted to faience, and followed by
Rouen and
Strasbourg,
The products of faience manufactories, rarely marked, are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of the
body, the character and palette of the
glaze, and the style of decoration,
faïence blanche being left in its undecorated fired white slip.
Faïence parlante bears mottoes often on decorate labels or banners. Wares for
apothecary use bear the names of their intended contents, generally in Latin and often so abbreviated to be unrecognizable to the untutored eye. Mottoes of fellowships and associations became popular in the 18th century, leading to the
Faïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of the
French Revolution.
In the course of the later 18th century, cheap
porcelain took over the market for refined faience, and fine
stoneware in the early 19th century, fired so hot the unglazed body vitrifies, closed the last of the traditional makers'
ateliers even for
beer steins. At the low end of the market, local manufactories continued to supply regional markets with coarse and simple wares.
Faïence revival
In the 1870s, the
Aesthetic movement, notably in Britain, rediscovered the robust charm of faience, and the large porcelain manufactories marketed revived faience, such as the "Majolica ware" of
Minton and of
Wedgwood.
Many centres of traditional manufacture are recognized, even some individual
ateliers. A partial list follows.
England
*
Faience fine (imported into France)
France
*
Aprey faience*
Lyon faience*
Lunéville faience*
Marseille faience*
Moustiers faience*
Nevers faience*
Quimper faience*
Saint-Porchaire faienceGermany
*
Abtsbessingen faience*
Nürnberg faience*
Öttingenâ€"Schrattenhofen faience*
Schleswig faience*
Stockelsdorf faience -
:de:Stockelsdorfer Fayencemanufaktur*
Stralsund faience -
:de:Stralsunder FayencenmanufakturItaly
*
Savona faience*
Turin faienceScandinavia
*
Rörstrand faience*
Strålsund faience*
German faience beer steins
