Creil-Montereau faience

Creil-Montereau faience is a faïence fine, a lead-glazed earthenware on a white body originating in the French communes of Creil, Oise and of Montereau, Seine-et-Marne, but carried forward under a unified direction since 1819. Emulating the creamware perfected by Josiah Wedgwood in the 1770s, and under the artistic and technical direction of native English potter entrepreneurs, the faience of Creil-Montereau introduced the industrial technique of transfer printing on pottery in France and raised it to a high state of perfection during its peak years in the 19th century..

A faience manufactory at the village of Montereau-sur-le-Jard had been established by Jean Rognon, working there ca 1720-1740, but the manufacture of faïence fine, which requires a very white body under its colorless but glossy lead glaze, was begun in 1749, sited to the east of the village centre the quartier Saint-Nicolas. From 1755 to 1762 these kilns were operated by Etienne-François Mazois (1719-1762) who intended to rival the increasingly successful Queen's ware perfected by Josiah Wedgwood, that was driving the traditional tin-glazed earthenwares of France out of business. In 1760 Mazois was the entrepreneur of the royal manufacture at Nevers. His family maintained a shop for faience in quai de la Tournelle, Paris. After a lapse the manufacture of faïence fine at Montereau was resumed in 1774 by an English partnership, Clark, Shaw et Cie, succeeded by Hall and Merlin-Hall, who found a new rival, 1796 - 1805, in another English entrepreneur, Christopher Potter (1751-1817). Potter first introduced in France the English technique of transfer printing from copperplate engravings onto earthenware and porcelain. This innovation transformed the pottery of Montereau from an artisanal phase to a proto-industry. Between 1805 and 1815, to avoid conflicts with the pottery of Merlin-Hall at Montereau, Potter set up works in a former tile manufactory nearby, at Cannes-Ecluse. In 1819 the proprietor of the competing manufactory at Creil bought out the owners of the Montereau works at a stiff price. The potteries at Montereau were fully incorporated with the works at Creil from 1840 to 1895 as the Faïenceries de Creil et Montereau. then in 1920 were hived off in association with the faience manufactory at Choisy-le-Roi,. The manufacture at Montereau finally closed in 1955, the abandoned works destroyed and the archives lost.

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