Limoges Porcelain
The generic term porcelain refers to a ceramic material
that is made by mixing various raw materials, including
clay and kaolinite, together with water to create a paste.
Forming the resulting mass into a desired shape and then
firing the shape at between 1200 degrees C (2192 F)
and 1400 degrees C (2552 F) produces porcelain.
At these very elevated temperatures glass and the mineral
mullite form, giving the body great strength and translucence.
There are many significant properties associated with
porcelain. Among them are: great strength, brittleness, low
elasticity, and permeability, translucence, a ringing resonance,
high resistance to thermal shock and resistance to chemical attack.
Porcelain is used to make decorative objects, table and kitchenwares,
fine art objects, tiles, laboratory ware, dental forms and electrical
insulators. Decorative porcelain was made in two ways; under glaze
decoration and over glaze decoration. The under glaze decoration
was accomplished by bisque firing the form, applying metal containing
decorative pigments (frequently gold, cobalt or copper), then applying
the top glaze and finish firing the form. The over glaze decoration
consisted of applying various colored enamels over glazed and fired forms.
Examples of so-called hard paste porcelain wares are Limoges and
Meissen in Europe and Tucker in the United States. It is widely thought
that porcelain originated in China, flourished in the Islamic world and
gradually made its way to Europe in approximately 1708 from which
it evolved to the United States.
The subject of today’s video is Limoges Porcelain, hard paste porcelain
that was produced in factories in and around Limoges, France beginning
in the late 1700’s. Limoges does not refer to a specific manufacturer
but rather to the general location in which it was made. The discovery
of economically mineable quantities of the mineral kaolinite near
Limoges made manufacturing of beautiful high quality ware possible.
Haviland and Company, a major manufacturer of Limoges porcelain
was established and flourished after the French revolution. Production
from the approximately 45 factories that produced Limoges porcelain
at one time or another, continued until 1930 or so.
Much of the production from these factories was sold and exported as
undecorated “white wares” or blanks. The blanks were subsequently
decorated. To a certain extent they were decorated by professional
artists but many of the blanks were used in popular crafts activities in
the late 19th century. Although some pieces of Limoges are decorated
and signed by known artists many are not. Therefore Limoges ware
must be judged on its merits with particular attention paid to the quality
of the decoration and the level of detail depicted. Obviously, those pieces
of Limoges that bear factory and studio marks represent greater value
than those which cannot be authenticated.
To view the video please click on the link below
