French porcelain
| French porcelain |
|---|
 Saint-Cloud manufactory |
Saint-Cloud manufactory
soft-paste porcelain bowl, 1700-1710.
French porcelain has a history spanning a period from the 17th century to the present.
Chinese porcelain had long been imported from China, and was a very expensive and desired luxury. Chinese porcelains were treasured, collected from the time of Francis I, and sometimes adorned with elaborate mountings of precious metal to protect them and enhance their beauty. Huge amounts especially of silver were sent from Europe to China to pay for the desired Chinese porcelain wares, and numerous attempts were made to duplicate the material.
It was at the Nevers manufactory that Chinese-style blue and white wares were produced for the first time in France, with production running between 1650 and 1680. Chinese styles would then be taken up by factories in Normandy, especially following the foundation of the French East India Company in 1664.
The first soft-paste porcelain in France was developed in an effort to imitate high-valued Chinese hard-paste porcelain, and follow the attempts of Medici porcelain in the 16th century. The first soft-paste frit porcelain, was produced at the Rouen manufactory in 1673, in order to mimic "la véritable porcelaine de Chine" ("The true porcelain of China"), and became known as "Porcelaine française". The technique of producing the new material was discovered by the Rouen potter Louis Poterat; his licence to make "faience and porcelain" was taken out in 1673, signed by the king and Jean-Baptiste Colbert The soft porcelain used blue designs of the type already used in the faiences of the period. Dr. Martin Lister reported from his voyage to Paris, printed in 1698, that a manufacture of porcelain "as white and translucid as the one that came from the East" was in full operation at Saint-Cloud.
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