Featured A wonderful gift from the French Revolution (well, just before - I think!)

A friend of mine, moving away, was wondering whether to throw out some of her long deceased fathers things ... including this! (No, I do not mean that he was alive during the Revolution itself - he was an archaeologist who liked digging up things and putting them back together - things like this!)

He had made a start, but for some reason, never completed the job.

This, according to him, is a mid to late 18th century Nevers, France, pitcher, the decoration being inspired by the Middle Eastern craftsmen brought to France around the 16th century.

I don't know about you, but I would have thought this belongs in a museum rather than in landfill! So, I kept it!

However, I thought I would show it to you. Perhaps make you gasp ... or laugh ... or cry ...

 

Good for you! - I don't mind broken things and this REALLY qualifies!

Thanks for posting!

 

very interesting to see the color and mixture content of the clay, thanks!

 

@say_it_slowly will want to see this!

 

lovely. the two blue top rings and the blue stripes on the handle are very typical.
nice town.
the "Middle Eastern craftsmen" are a bit obscure to me.

 

Ah ... that's because they were from Italy! (Now you see why I use THAT emoticon!) ... according to my homework the Duke of Nevers, Louis Gonzague, brought craftsmen from Italy to his residence - the château du Marais in Gimouille in 1565. ... I was just using my wrong glasses ...!

 

may well be that there was a certain Italian influence. on the other hand you find these forms of pitchers and rather simple decorations all along the way up to the Channel. the countryside has no real dividing lines between Nevers and Britanny; rightout boring.

 

The technology of the white, lead + tin oxide glazed pottery did originate with Islamic potters in the Middle East, as early as the 9th century. They were trying to imitate the Chinese porcelain that was highly valued. The technique was carried to Spain during the period of Al-Andalus/Moorish Spain, and subsequently to Italy and further north into Europe.

 

This surely doesn’t deserve the landfill, you did well keeping it

I love the note on the sticker « ébréchures au pied », nicks on foot, no mention of it being in many shards

A little too big for my kyratisations

 

... The other 'rubbish' was a box full of Roman sigillata, and some prehistoric tools (including a stone axe ... complete with wooden handle ... only the handle 'looked dirty and so was cleaned'off!!!! ... AAAARRGGHH!!

 

Sicily had Arabs as early as Spain.

 

True. The Arab Emirate in Sicily did not last as long, only until the Norman conquest in the late 11th cen., and subsequent expulsion of all Muslims by the mid 13th cen. The technology for tin glazed ceramics does not seem to have been transferred to greater Europe until the early Renaissance. Don't know why. Perhaps the direct importation of Chinese porcelains into Europe about that time sparked interest in creating their own white ceramics, and the tin glazes were the closest they could achieve. Once they found ways of creating true porcelains in Europe, interest in the tin-glazed wares seems to have declined.

 

Cute jug! I have a small French faience jug though different than yours. I've found it a bit challenging to date these as the French have made tin-glazed cruet sets for some time.

As far as museums, if you know where it came from or who might have owned it a museum somewhere might like to have it.

 

sorry, completely wrong. under Norman rule there was an unseen tolerance. Greeks, Jews, Arabs and Christians were living side by side.
in the chapel of the Norman Palace in Palermo there are stones installed with three scripts, so that everybody could understand what the others prayed. for the Non-Christians there's even a small window to see how the Christians worshipped.

 

I thought I had replied to this earlier, but apparently forgot to hit "post".
Yes, there was a period of coexistence, as there was in Spain. My point was that the Islamic influence in Sicily did not extend to the time period when this particular technology seems to have spread, and evidence suggests the technique spread from Moorish Spain. Nothing I said precluded/excluded the Muslim presence in Sicily - it just wasn't relevant.