io4 
RERAMIC STUDIO 
A PRECURSOR OF MODERN FRENCH POTTERS 
Laurent Bouvier 
TO the illustrations of modern French pottery, we add a 
few pieces from an almost unknown artist, whose vases 
and plates made quite a sensation in Paris about thirty years 
ago, and whose life is a lesson to the would-be student of 
pottery. 
Laurent Bouvier was a painter, not a potter, and his 
vases were the pastime of his summer vacations in his natal 
province of Dauphine in France. There are many potteries 
in that country making only rustic wares for country use, 
without any artistic pretensions. But they have kilns and 
clays and potter's wheels, and it is all that a true artist needs 
to become a potter of note. Laurent Bouvier came to Paris 
in 1861 to follow his vocation, the study of painting, notwith- 
standing the opposition of his parents who wanted him to 
study law, and cut his allowance when they learned that he 
was a student at the "Academie Suisse." 
His first painting sent to the Salon was refused. But in 
1866 a study in white, a white bouquet in a white vase on a 
white cloth, was received, and his painting for the Salon of 
1868, very much noticed by critics, was bought by the French 
Government. As if the painter had a presentiment of the 
fascination which the potter's art would have for him later 
on, this painting, which we reproduce here, was an allegorical 
and decorative composition, called "La Ceramique." 
It is only in 1869 that Laurent Bouvier, while spending 
the summer in his natal mountains, thought of trying his 
hand at the making of faience. When he came back to Paris 
at the beginning of the following winter, he brought a few 
cases full of his vases and plates, intending to use them only 
as a decoration for his studio. One of his friends advised 
him to exhibit them at an Exposition of Arts and Crafts 
which happened to be held in Paris that winter. His success 
was instantaneous, and his pieces eagerly bought by such con- 
noisseurs as Prince Orloff, Countess Narishkine, Mess, de St. 
Remy, Paul Perier, Christofle and others. Then came the 
war of 1870, in which he took part, being able to resume his 
work only in 1872. Another exhibition of his faiences held 
in the winter of that year had the same success as the first, 
Durand-Ruel, the dealer, buying most of them. 
A cruel disease, which for the last twenty-nine years has 
confined him to his provincial home in Dauphine, and a great 
part of his time to his bed, has suddenly cut short the brilliant 
career of this talented painter and self-made keramist. He 
has at times attempted to take up again his brush and his 
clays, but the hand was unable to execute the conceptions of 
the brain which had remained as clear and bright as ever. 
From a modern point of view, the work of Laurent 
Bouvier will be found altogether too Oriental. The ornament 
LA CERAMIQUB 
