Featured Italian Faience Wine Jug

Perhaps but I’ve been doing some Googling and Tortat has his own French Wickipaedia page and appears to be very highly regarded in his own right.

 

there is no Tortat page. neither for Besnard.
furthermore the important topic is the difference between "grand feu" and "petit feu".
grand feu was made by artists and masters like the Mougin brothers, Bigot etc., wherebye they heated up the kiln to 1100 - 1200 °. petit feu is terre cuite, everyday faience etc.

 

here is the Wicki page
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josaphat_Tortat

 

Only a mod can completely delete. The rest of us edit unwanted comments by deleting original & just putting 'deleted' or even a period/full stop. You can't post a blank box.

 

Your translation of the French is very good. I think that “tâtonné” may mean more like over-worked or over-processed and the last bit more like “to make the grade.”

I think it’s a lovely jug and it does have a bit of an Italian look to it, but the mark SIS found (she’s so good at deciphering these marks and finding them!) shows it’s French faience. Nice!

 

I think the translation was done with a computer program. Thanks for clarifying some of the bits where the program stumbled. S_I_S is a marvel.

 

This drove me to my French/English dictionary, since my high school French is in no way sufficient for less common words that aren't cognates. Sense seems to be find one's way or grope, in the sense of clutch at blindly, not the way we tend to hear it today, so think maybe the idea is he never never developed a coherent, consistent style.

This makes sense. The translators are not good with idiomatic expressions.

 

There isn't a delete button.
If you are talking about your double post. That happens occassionally.

If the "Edit" button is showing, you can use it. Delete what you wrote and then just type something like double post or deleted and then save. Some people just use a period.

The edit button is only available for a while, then disappears.

 

Sorry, I came in on the last unread, which was your question. Didn't see that there was a page two and Bronwen had answered.

 

This has happened to me, more than once.

 

Too kind and as Bronwen mentioned I used a translation program. Google translate on my phone is just an "aim and scan" app so I just scanned the text in the book for instant translation.

I've collected books as I've wondered about objects so at this point in addition to the all the items I've collected I have quite a lot of books though don't seem to retain much and have to refer to them. Sadly, at times I've had some rather wonderful links to websites with great info that have disappeared over time. Someone has to maintain them.

 

Hope you don't mind, I'm in your boat as well.

 

I emailed a friend of mine whose business was translation and he is French, so I figured he would know what tâtonné meant in this case. Here is his response:

Yes to blindly search / fumble around

The author is suggesting that it was more of a trial and error process meaning it could not become a standard.


It was bugging me that I couldn’t find a good definition of tâtonner! So, it appears that the products of this factory was not held in the highest esteem.

 

get over it. it has nothing to do with French. Ulysse Besnard was the the important figure and still pays good money in France. the other one that left the company is of lesser importance.

 

Ah Fid, it was the correct English translation of tâtonné that I was going for — not the merit of the piece which, as I said, is very nice.

 

the Larousse du XXe siècle is not enough ? it's the equivalent of the Oxford dictionary.
what is meant without the background of the local ceramics industry is at everyone's pleasure. all along the Loire and its sidearms there were clay pits that had a layer of good material, easily accessible but very speedily exhausted - we had a piece of earthenware from around Nevers here some time ago. small factory founded by Italian immigrants and working in the same style.

 

I gave away my large hardback Larousse years ago.

 

A massive thank you for helping me to identify this jug. It just sold on eBay and to say I am delighted with the result would be an understatement.

 

Very nice result!