The Town, The People and The Pottery
Volume 24 Number 6
November 2022
November 2022
The western-most part of the continent of Europe, this is a 1683 map of Brittany. Quimper is located to the left of center, above a small island and noted with its name at that time...Quimper-Corentin.
Quimper...pronounced "kem-pair"...is a town in northwestern France. It is also a people and a pottery.
To the people of Quimper, the town name is Kemper, which in their language describes a confluence of rivers. ("Quimper" is a somewhat nonsensical rendition as not all the Breton dialects have a "Q" and a true French pronunciation would be different from the actual "kem-pair"). At any rate, "confluence of rivers" is an apt description, as the town is situated at the juncture of two rivers, the Odet and the Steir. Two other rivers, the Jet and the Frout, are close-by, but travel underground through the town limits. Historically, this close proximity to rivers meant an ideal place to establish a pottery factory and thus, Quimper has been a pottery town for centuries. Its "recent" history of continuous pottery production begins in 1708. (Previous accounts put the date as 1690, but history is not written in stone and recent findings have provided further information).
By the last decade of the nineteenth century, three pottery factories were operating in the town of Quimper. One was the Porquier factory, another was known as the Grande Maison or De la Hubaudière factory, and the third, owned by Jules Henriot, was called the Faïencerie d’Art Breton. Tin-glazed earthenware, known in France as faïence, was a popular product, especially pieces that were hand-painted with scenes depicting life in the region of Brittany.
The making of faïence is an art. Especially in the early days, prior to the introduction of more modern methods, when both the technical and artistic skills necessary to make a piece of faïence were quite daunting. Extremely difficult to master its making, I've been known to liken faïence to being the "puff pastry" of pottery production.
The use of an opaque tin glaze is one factor that distinguishes faïence from other types of pottery...pieces made by this process were known as faïence in France, Spain, Germany, and Austria; in the Netherlands, they were called Delft; in England, the term was Delftware; and in Renaissance Italy, such pieces were called maiolica...not to be confused with majolica, that's actually a trade name of the Minton pottery in England for a Victorian-era product made using substantially different glazes and production methods.
The tradition of Quimper faïence production continues today. But much like the comparison of a Model T with a current Ford Motor Company product, today’s Quimper is very different from vintage Quimper. In many fields of collecting there is a line of demarcation; for Quimper pottery that line is World War II. Modern techniques and machinery introduced in the days after World War II resulted in the creation of a different product. Vintage Quimper refers to pieces made prior to that time period; later production falls into the collectible genre.
Here at www.oldquimper.com, we specialize in vintage Quimper and invite you to come along as we further explore old Quimper...The Town, The People, and The Pottery. If you've just joined us, since 1999 we've been using these pages to extol upon the beauty and intrigue of vintage Quimper pottery and, at the same time, do some "traveling"...and, indeed, over the years, we have visited some of the most picturesque towns of Brittany...each one delightfully different.
Each month, this depiction of King Gradlon by Quimper-born artist Pierre Toulhoat (1923-2014) will herald in a new article about Quimper...The Town, The People and The Pottery.
In last month's article, we presented a review of the annual special exhibition for 2022 held at Quimper's Musée de la Faïence ...Les Merveilles de la Faïencerie Porquier-Beau. The exhibit had just ended...the museum is now closed as it prepares for next year's event...and the article was presented as an opportunity to share the experience for those who were unable to see the actual exhibit in person.
The exhibit centered around ten albums of watercolors that, in all, contained over 600 individual paintings. The albums had been created for the Porquier pottery in the last quarter of the 19th century and later, in the 1920s, they became the property of the Henriot pottery. Last year, the new owner of the ten albums offered them to the museum in an extended loan so that the public could enjoy them. Thousands flocked to Quimper to relish the watercolors of Camille Moreau that served to document the designs that were the core of the agreement between the Porquier pottery and the Breton artist Alfred Beau.
An original watercolor and a Porquier-Beau piece painted with the depicted motif.
Beau's motifs in the scènes bretonnes albums celebrated Brittany's daily life...highlighting the different coiffes and costumes that identified much about the wearer...,their specific village, their age, social and marital status, etc.
In this issue, we'll take a look at another item of clothing that provided additional tell-tale clues...sabots...the French term for wooden shoes...called boutou-coat in the Breton language. Despite the stubborn and wide-spread Dutch attribution, the wearing of shoes made of wood was not restricted to the Netherlands. Au contraire...they were popular throughout France, England, Germany and other European countries. If I had a nickel for each time I'm asked about "a piece painted with a Dutch couple"...but I digress.
In Brittany, sabot styles differed from village to village in much the same manner as the region's multitude of coiffe variations.
In Brittany, sabot styles differed from village to village in much the same manner as the region's multitude of coiffe variations.
A close-up view of an Henriot jardinère decorated with a scene of a Breton youngster's first steps...such steps were likely taken wearing a pair of sabots that had the ankle area reinforced with something stiff...cardboard or leather as in the above example.
In centuries past, Breton sabotiers...the sabot makers...and their extended families lived a nomadic existence in groups of small huts they erected in the midst of a forest. In general, they did not integrate into village life, moving often as the wood supply diminished or authorities became aware of their activities.
Just as so many aspects of traditional Breton life were depicted on Quimper pottery, this Henriot vase features a scene of a sabot maker hard at work. He is in the finishing stages of sabot fabrication...carving out the footbed.
This vintage postcard chronicles one of the first steps in the making of sabots...removing the bark from a solid chunk of wood.
Sabot making was a family affair. Trees were cut in the winter when the tree sap levels were at their lowest. Based on the buyer's needs, the expected level of exposure to moisture dictated which wood was to be used. Beech was the most common, but sabots destined for sailors and fishermen would be made of poplar.
Detail view of a plate designed by Jim-Eugène Sévellec for the Henriot pottery featuring sabot wearing fishermen back on shore with their catch.
To protect their nets, the tips of the sabots designed for workers involved in fishing, gathering oysters, etc. were more rounded and, in some cases, were topped with leather up to the knee in an effort to keep the wearer dry. That style is depicted above on a tile painting by Sévellec...see this issue's Memo from J-P link to see more images of this superb example of Quimper as an art pottery.
The sabots of other professions had their own requirements...a maraîcher or vegetable grower had a slot in the bottom of their sabots for their shovel, the man who delivered coal had bells attached to the front of their sabots to announce their arrival in the neighborhood and poachers...known as braconniers...were known to order sabots that would leave backward footprints in order to foil would-be trailing authorities !
Clam-diggers and seekers of other shell fish along the shores wore special sabots with a flat bottom to prevent sinking into the wet sand...as seen in this detail view of the central motif of an HB plate from the provinces françaises series dedicated to Archacon.
Eventually government regulations were imposed and the sabot makers set up shop in the towns and villages creating shoes for everyday as well as for festivals and marriages.
These large, exaggerated sabots were displayed outside the shop of Louis Touzet who worked in a town between Tours and Lyon from 1865 to 1930.
The most elaborate sabots were reserved for festivals and marriages...in some villages the sabots were part of the engagement ritual itself...the potential bridegroom bringing a highly-decorated sabot as part of his proposal. By the 1950s, most of Brittany's sabot makers had installed machinery eliminating much of the hand work. However, a command for an exaggerated form, the addition of metal brads, or decorative carving provided a continued element of creativity on the part of the sabot maker.
In the recording of Breton daily life and activities on faïence, sabots were ever present in the motifs used by the Quimper potteries...both incidentally...
...as in these Bachelet bookends by the Henriot pottery...
...or as the actual form as is the case with this HB example.
Household activities and chores were done wearing sabots...as attested to in the motifs of these two Porquier-Beau examples...
...as well as this HB motif.
The sabots worn by the lavandières while hard at work washing clothes and linens had a squared tip rather than a pointed one in order to be able to kneel more easily.
Two sculptural Henriot Quimper figures of lavandières...an all-white figure by Bachelet and an ashtray signed A. Le Picard...André Le Picard ( 1911-1989 ).
Charles Maillard was another artist who collaborated with the Henriot pottery...
...his figures and decorative motifs often have prominently-displayed sabots...whether it be a coupe...
...a charger painted with enthusiastic dancers or a pair of figural knife rests.
A pair of Maillard-designed open salts in the form of sabots...
...salt receptacles in sabot form were employed by other Quimper potteries throughout their histories...
...from the last quartier of the 19th century, a double salt from the Porquier pottery...
...another example from Porquier...a sécouette in the form of a sabot.
Larger pieces in the form of a sabot were used as bouquet holders destined to be attached to a wall...this Henriot example is decorated in the ivoire corbeille pattern.
A sabot-form wall pocket from the turn of the 20th century decorated in an à la touche floral design.
And of course, the Bretons depicted within the scenes on many a Quimper piece are realistically shod in sabots...
...whether they be enjoying a rousing game of boules...
...or waving to loved ones as they embark on a maritime journey.
In some cases, the sabots on Quimper pieces are minutely-detailed as in this Porquier-Beau scene where the use of brads on the soles to extend the life of the sabots is documented.
That's it for this issue...our exploration of Brittany...its towns, its people and its pottery...will continue in our next webisode. We publish a new issue on or about the first of each month...with a double issue for July/August. If you would like an email reminder when a new issue comes out, please contact us at oldquimper@yahoo.com. ...and be sure to check your computer settings...because sometimes unless you change them, we end up in your SPAM folder !