Earthenware of Gien

Among the many faience manufactures of the 19th century, the fame of the faience of Gien is equal to that of the faience manufacturers of Creil-Monterau, of Longwy, Sarreguemines or Bordeaux.

The faience establishments of Gien excelled in the art of the imitation, and manufactured copies of parts of the past, but with an accessible cost, but also by the single parts with the assistance of painters decorators of talent who created new decorations and were inspired or adapted those of the centuries spent, the XVIIe and 18th centuries, those of the other European faience manufactures and those of the Far East.

It is in 1821 that Thomas Edme Hulm, known as " Hall", like his/her father, after having yielded the manufacture of Montereau managed by its family since 1774, acquiérait the grounds and buildings of the old convent the Tiny ones to install there a new earthenware manufacture, English way, destined for a world famous.

The production initially was interested in the utility crockery then it was directed towards the manufacture of service and decorative part, sets of table linen to the weapons of the big families. The important production of oil or oil lamps, is a typically original specificity with Gien.

At the level, purely technical, the faience manufacturers of Gien developed the technique of the enamels Cloisonné S, born with Longwy in Lorraine, towards 1870.

The apogee of the production of the faience manufacturers of Gien was between 1855 and 1900 and of many rewards were decreed to them during the great international exhibitions, as in 1855, 1867, 1878, 1889 and 1900.

Among the most famous inspirations, one counts many decorations:

those known as of “Gien” at black or blue bottom brown, majolic with decoration “Rebirth Italian” with its rinceaux, its loves and its dreams, etc being inspired in particular by the productions of Faenza, Urbino or Soaps;
those called “made-to-order”, taking as a starting point the porcelains of Saxony, in the form of floral decorations, refined, of loves finely drawn evolving/moving in medallions in leaf, a camaieu of pink or crimson but also of blue lavender raised of Parma.
those called “to the horn”, of “lambrequins” and “ironwork”, taking as a starting point the productions of the faience manufactures of Rouen at the 18th century;
pastoral or maritime landscapes, taking as a starting point the faience manufactures of Marseilles;
porcelain known as “English” taking as a starting point the earthenware of Wedgwood, in the form of models with the tone of bluish white and mauve blue.
blue and white camaieux, taking as a starting point the faience manufactures of Delft on the topic of the large opened out flowers, peacocks, branches, or Chinese scenes.
and, the factueuses polychromies come from the Far East.

Parts sought by the collectors

parts with the italianizing decorations;
impressionist coloured barbotines of the end of the XIXe century signed Dominique Grenet, Clear Guyot, Eugene Small, Felix Lafond, Jean Cachier, Paul Jusselin, or Ulysses Bertrand;
contemporary coloured barbotines of Claire Basler, Florence Lemichez;
the barbotines misleads the eye of Christine Viennet of it (the made-to-order of Bernard Palissy);
large decorative parts, like the lamps, the pendulums, the luminaries;
parts of the most famous decorators, such: Benoist, Blay, Ulysses Bertrand, Brim, Gondoin, Paul Jusselin.

External bond

site of the faience manufacture of Gien

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