96 
You might just as well have a 
shower with the Any force Head. 
Then the force as well as the 
H F a Mixing Valve ever had 
a weakness it was, that in 
allowing instant control of 
the SHOWER’S temperature 
with the turn of a handle, it 
did not allow any governing 
of the water’s force or volume. 
The Any force Head, part of 
Speakman Mixometer Showers, 
now does this. 
—And as to the Mixometer, pro¬ 
nounced Mix-om-eter; its continued 
use, without the need for repairs, 
in hotels, residences, clubs and gym¬ 
nasiums, has led plumbers to say, 
when discussing the Mixometer, “It 
always works.” 
Ask your plumber for a Speakman 
Shower folder or write us mentioning 
the type of shower in which you are 
interested. 
SPEAKMAN COMPANY 
Wilmington, Delaware 
COLD 
A K 
SHUT 
temperature of the 
water will be under 
your instant control. 
HOT 
House & Garden 
F aience Of Old Fr ance 
(Continued from page q6) 
Rouen as we do of Sevres in connection 
with French porcelain. Nevers, however, 
produced faience antedating that of 
Rouen although this never reached 
particular originality, being purely imi¬ 
tative, though finely so. In the begin¬ 
ning of this ware the Italian influence 
it exhibited was naturally strong, ex¬ 
plained by the fact that the marriage of 
Lodovico Gonzago, Duke of Mantua 
with Henrietta of Cleves had brought 
Italian influences into Nevers where 
legend has it the Duke employed Italian 
potters to teach their craft to French 
workmen. At a later period in the 
history of the Nevers faience, the 
gout person came into popularity, 
pieces with azure or dull yellow grounds 
with decoration in somewhat irides¬ 
cent whites and yellows of flowers, 
birds and plants after the Persian 
manner. Other of the Nevers wares 
were, in turn, decorated en cama- 
ieu, while later these wares came under 
the influence of Chinese and of Japanese 
keramic decoration. Oriental porcelains, 
it will be remembered, known in France 
as early as the 16th Century, and a 
hundred years later were being im¬ 
ported by the French in quantities. 
These Nevers pieces are not uncom¬ 
monly met with today. In the course 
of Nevers faience production, there 
was a short period of more nearly 
original decoration characterized as 
the Franco-Nivernese period in which 
primitive French sources of decora¬ 
tion were drawn upon. This did not 
last for long as Nevers again took 
to imitating the wares of Rouen, 
Moustiers, etc. The French Revolu¬ 
tion followed by the Anglo-French 
treaty of 1789 giving English pot¬ 
teries entry to France put an end to 
profitable faience manufacture at 
Nevers. 
The Norman city of Rouen could, it 
is true, boast of the early fabrique of 
Abaquesne, already mentioned, but with 
the passing of that master-potter the 
production of faience in Rouen appears 
to have ceased until its revival about the 
year 1647. The workmen of the newly 
revived Rouen potteries were from 
Nevers, it is true, and the early Rouen 
pieces exhibit an Italian influence in 
their decoration. Such pieces (dishes 
and plates, for the most part), have 
blue decoration en camdieu, birds, flow¬ 
ers and monsters forming the motifs. 
But by the end of the 17th Century the 
decorated faience of Rouen had become 
distinctly creative in style, although 
many of its motifs were borrowed from 
the textile patterns of the time as well 
as from contemporary ironwork, mar- 
queterie and typographical ornament. 
These motifs, though borrowed, were 
applied with spirit, and were as often 
adapted as adopted. Louis XIV’s wars 
quite directly lent impetus to the manu¬ 
facture of faience at Rouen and else¬ 
where. We find Saint-Simon writing in 
his memoirs as follows: “A.l that was 
of great or considerable value was re¬ 
placed by faience.” The King and the 
nobles sent their plate to be melted up 
and coined for pay for the troops and 
faience table services had, in conse¬ 
quence, to take their place, a place 
never afterwards usurped. 
By the end of the 17th Century many 
faience fabriques were in operation at 
Rouen. Those directed by the Dame 
de St. Etienne and by the Widow Loiic 
Guillibaud remind us of the important 
part women have played in the keramic 
industry of France from the time of 
Helene de Hangest to our own day. 
While there were some fifty faience 
manufactories in Rouen in 1788, the 
number had dwindled to seven in 1802. 
The following is Darcel’s description 
of the decoration of Rouen faience; 
“conventional and symmetrical designs 
forming scrolls or scallops, which, sym¬ 
metrically distributed over the surface 
of the pieces, radiate around the centre 
in the case of dishes and plates, or de¬ 
scend from the brim and cover the 
body in the case of vases. This style of 
decoration is generally blue or white 
enamel.” The earliest dated piece of 
Rouen faience in “Rouen Style” is a 
polychrome dish signed “Brument 1699.” 
It was not till the last quarter of the 
17th Century that Rouen faience em¬ 
ployed decoration in polychrome. Still 
later came the decor a ferronerie (iron¬ 
work decoration). The first half of the 
18th Century was the “high-water” 
period of the ware, during which a 
great many pieces were manufactured. 
These are not uncommonly to be met 
with by the collector, although the 
larger pieces have come to be found 
but rarely. The finest of the Rouen 
faience with Chinese motifs were from 
the factory of the Veuve Loiic Guilli¬ 
baud. After this Chinese style came 
into vogue, the Rouen pieces en rocaille, 
bearing as decorations designs of scenes 
of gallantry or rural views, trophies, 
quivers, cornucopias and single flowers 
were popular. 
At Moustiers the manufacture of 
faience began with the fabrique estab¬ 
lished there by Pierre Clerissy, some¬ 
where about the year 1686. As in the 
case of the faience of Rouen, that of 
Moustiers benefitted by Louis XIV’s 
sumptuary laws. Some of Clerissy’s 
pieces were decorated with subjects from 
drawings by the celebrated Florentine 
engraver, Antonio Tempesta, while 
others were decorated with designs by 
Frans Floris. The early Clerissy pieces 
are in a more delicate and lighter blue 
than that employed in the decoration of 
the Rouen faience. During the Rege- 
ance, Antonio Tempesta’s hunting and 
battle scene gave way to the more 
graceful subjects inspired by mytho¬ 
logy and Jean Berian, Bernard Picard 
and B. Toro of Toulon influenced the 
Moustiers decoration of the period. 
From Alcor.a in Spain, the secret of 
polychrome decoration was brought to 
the Moustiers ateliers, and exception¬ 
ally beautiful pieces were produced in 
this genre from 1738 to 1749. From 
1756 the faience product of Moustiers 
declined in quality, although it was in¬ 
creased in quantity. This deterioration 
was in its decoration since the stand¬ 
ard of its enamel appears to have been 
maintained 
The Marseilles fabrique was establish¬ 
ed in the reign of King Rene of Prov¬ 
ence, and its atelier was in the surburb 
known as Saint Jean du Desart where 
as early as 1697 A. Clerissy was signing 
dated Marseilles pieces. Like the early 
Moustiers pieces, some of the early 
Marseilles faience was decorated with 
Antonio Tempesta’s designs. However 
Marseilles keramic decorators turned 
more often to scriptural subjects. Poly¬ 
chrome decoration appears to have been 
in vogue at Marseilles before it was 
adopted at Moustiers. There are marked 
differences in the old faience of the two 
cities. There was, in the Marseilles 
pieces, a greater refinement in color and 
in form. According to documentary 
evidence unearthed by Jacquemart, the 
Marseilles faience fabriques were ex¬ 
porting some 105,000 pounds of their 
wares to the French colonies in America 
in the year 1766. 
Both in historical interest and in 
aesthetic appeal the early faience of old 
France arrests the attention of the col¬ 
lector and the striking designs of its 
pieces make it attractive from the deco¬ 
rative point of view. 
