- For the architectural material, see Glazed architectural terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta is a ceramic masonry building material popular in the United States from the late 19th century until the 1930s, and still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments...
. For the ceramics of Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley, see Egyptian faienceEgyptian faience is a non-clay based ceramic displaying surface vitrification which creates a bright lustre of various colours. Having not been made from clay it is often not classed as pottery. It is called "Egyptian faience" to distinguish it from faience, the tin glazed pottery associated with...
Faience or
faïence is the conventional name in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
for fine
tin-glazed potteryTin-glazed pottery is pottery covered in glaze containing tin oxide which is white, shiny and opaque. The pottery body is usually made of red or buff colored earthenware and the white glaze was often used to imitate Chinese porcelain...
on a delicate pale buff body, associated with
FaenzaFaenza is an Italian city and comune, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km southeast of Bologna.Faenza is noted for its manufacture of majolica ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the name of the town as "faience"....
in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of
potteryPottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. Major types of pottery include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries. Pottery is one of the oldest human technologies and art-forms, and remains a major industry today...
.
- For the architectural material, see Glazed architectural terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta is a ceramic masonry building material popular in the United States from the late 19th century until the 1930s, and still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments...
. For the ceramics of Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley, see Egyptian faienceEgyptian faience is a non-clay based ceramic displaying surface vitrification which creates a bright lustre of various colours. Having not been made from clay it is often not classed as pottery. It is called "Egyptian faience" to distinguish it from faience, the tin glazed pottery associated with...
Faience or
faïence is the conventional name in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
for fine
tin-glazed potteryTin-glazed pottery is pottery covered in glaze containing tin oxide which is white, shiny and opaque. The pottery body is usually made of red or buff colored earthenware and the white glaze was often used to imitate Chinese porcelain...
on a delicate pale buff body, associated with
FaenzaFaenza is an Italian city and comune, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km southeast of Bologna.Faenza is noted for its manufacture of majolica ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the name of the town as "faience"....
in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of
potteryPottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. Major types of pottery include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries. Pottery is one of the oldest human technologies and art-forms, and remains a major industry today...
. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A
kilnKilns are thermally insulated chambers, or ovens, in which controlled temperature regimes are produced. They are used to harden, burn or dry materials...
capable of producing temperatures exceeding was required to achieve this result (see
potteryPottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. Major types of pottery include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries. Pottery is one of the oldest human technologies and art-forms, and remains a major industry today...
), the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions.
Technically, lead-glazed earthenware, such as the French sixteenth-century
Saint-Porchaire wareSaint-Porchaire ware is the earliest very high quality French pottery. It is white faience ware that was made for a restricted French clientele from the 1520s to the 1540s. Only about sixty pieces of this ware survive, all of them well known before World War II. None have turned up in the last...
, does not properly qualify as faience, but the distinction is not usually maintained.
Ancient "faience"
- Main article Egyptian faience
Egyptian faience is a non-clay based ceramic displaying surface vitrification which creates a bright lustre of various colours. Having not been made from clay it is often not classed as pottery. It is called "Egyptian faience" to distinguish it from faience, the tin glazed pottery associated with...
.
The term "faience" has been extended to include finely glazed ceramic beads found in
EgyptThe Predynastic Period of Ancient Egypt is traditionally the period between the Early Neolithic and the beginning of the Pharaonic monarchy starting with King Narmer...
as early as 4000 BC and in the
Indus Valley CivilizationThe Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which centred mostly in the western part of the Indian Subcontinent and flourished around the Indus river basin....
. Examples of ancient faience are also found in
MinoanThe Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greek culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete...
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
, which was likely influenced by Egyptian culture. Faience material, for instance, has been recovered from the
KnossosKnossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
archaeological site.
Faience in the Western Mediterranean
The Moors brought the technique of tin-glazed earthenware to
Al-AndalusAl-Andalus was the Arabic name given to the parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Arab and North African Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492....
, where the art of metallic glazes was perfected. From Andalusia these "Hispano-Moresque wares" were exported, either directly or via the
Balearic IslandsThe Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula....
to Italy.
"Majolica" (pronounced and also spelled "maiolica") is a garbled version of "Maiorica", for the
islandAn island or isle is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls are called islets. A key or cay is another name for a small island or islet. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot, .There are two main types of islands:...
of Majorca, which was a transshipping point for refined tin-glazed earthenwares shipped to
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
from the
kingdom of AragonThe Kingdom of Aragon was an old kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon , in Spain...
in Spain at the close of the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
. This type of Spanish pottery owed much to its Moorish inheritance.
In Italy, locally produced tin-glazed earthenwares, initiated in the fourteenth century, reached a peak in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, represented by the Italian faience called
MajolicaMajolica or maiolica may refer to:* Maiolica - ceramics from Renaissance Italy with an opaque, white glaze containing carbon dioxide, usually painted in several colors, sometimes called majolica in English-speaking countries....
. The name
faience is simply the French name for
FaenzaFaenza is an Italian city and comune, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km southeast of Bologna.Faenza is noted for its manufacture of majolica ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the name of the town as "faience"....
, in the
RomagnaRomagna is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna. Traditionally, it is limited by the Apennines to the south-west, the Adriatic to the east, and the rivers Reno and Sillaro to the north and west...
near
RavennaRavenna is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The city is inland, but is connected to the Adriatic Sea by a canal. Ravenna was the capital of the Western Roman Empire till 476. It was later the capital ofKingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Exarchate of Ravenna till 751...
, Italy, where a painted majolica ware on a clean, opaque pure-white ground, was produced for export as early as the fifteenth century.
French and northern European faïence
The first northerners to imitate the tin-glazed earthenwares being imported from Italy were the
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
.
DelftwareDelftware, or Delft pottery, denotes blue and white pottery made in and around Delft in the Netherlands and the tin-glazed pottery made in the Netherlands from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries....
is a kind of faience, made at potteries round Delft in
HollandRotterdam
The Hague
Haarlem
Dordrecht |} Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The name 'Holland' is also often informally used to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands...
, characteristically decorated in blue on white, in imitation of the blue and white porcelain that was imported from
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
in the early sixteenth century, but it quickly developed its own recognisably Dutch décor.
"English Delftware" produced in
LambethLambeth is a place in the London Borough of Lambeth, although the area is now more commonly known as Waterloo, after the railway station whose viaduct separates the former centre of the village from the River Thames...
, London, on the south bank of the Thames, and at other centers, from the late sixteenth century, provided apothecaries with jars for wet and dry drugs. Many of the early potters in London were Flemish. By about 1600, blue-and-white wares were being produced, labelling the contents within decorative borders. The production was slowly superseded in the second half of the eighteenth century with the introduction of cheap
creamwareCreamware is a cream-coloured earthenware created about 1750 by the potters of Staffordshire, England, which proved ideal for domestic ware. It was popular until the 1820s. It was also known as tortoiseshellware or Prattware depending on the color of glaze used.The most notable producer of...
.
Dutch potters in northern (and Protestant) Germany established German centres of faience: the first manufactories in Germany were opened at
HanauHanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main.-Districts :-History:Hanau was first mentioned in 1143 and became a city in 1303....
(1661) and Heusenstamm (1662), soon moved to nearby Frankfurt-am-Main.
In France, centres of faience manufacturing developed from the early eighteenth century led in 1690 by Quimper in Brittany
http://www.faience-de-quimper.com/histquim_en.html, which today possesses an interesting museum devoted to faience, and followed by
RouenRouen is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie region. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, Rouen was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
,
StrasbourgStrasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north-eastern France. With 702,412 inhabitants in 2007, its metropolitan area is the ninth largest in France...
and
LunévilleLunéville is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France.It is a sub-prefecture of the department and lies on the Meurthe River.-History:...
. In Switzerland,
Zunfthaus zur MeisenThe Zunfthaus zur Meisen at Münsterhof is the guild house of the Zunft zur Meisen. It's one of the historically valuable buildings in the Lindenhof quarter in Zürich, Switzerland, and houses the porcelain and faience collection of the Swiss National Museum.- History :The guild house was built in...
near
FraumünsterThe Fraumünster abbey of Zürich was founded in 853 by Louis the German for his daughter Hildegard. He endowed the Benedictine convent with the lands of Zürich, Uri, and the Albis forest, and granted the convent immunity, placing it under his direct authority.- History :In 1045, King Henry III...
church houses the porcelain and faience collection of the
Swiss National MuseumThe Swiss National Museum — part of the Musée Suisse Group, itself affiliated with the Federal Office of Culture — is one of the most important art museums of cultural history in Europe and the world...
in
ZurichZürich or Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called the Cultural Capital of Switzerland, the political capital of Switzerland being Berne...
.
The products of French faience manufactories, rarely marked, are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of the body, the character and palette of the
glazeGlaze is a layer or coating of a vitreous substance which has been fired to fuse to a ceramic object to color, decorate, strengthen or waterproof it.-Use:...
, and the style of decoration,
faïence blanche being left in its undecorated fired white slip.
Faïence parlante bears mottoes often on decorative labels or banners. Wares for
apothecaryApothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist ....
, including
albarelloAn albarello is a type of maiolica earthenware jar originally designed to hold apothecaries' ointments and dry drugs. The development of this type of pharmacy jar had its roots in the Middle East during the time of the Islamic conquests. Brought to Italy by Hispano-Moresque traders, the earliest...
, can bear the names of their intended contents, generally in Latin and often so abbreviated to be unrecognizable to the untutored eye. Mottoes of fellowships and associations became popular in the 18th century, leading to the
Faïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based...
.
In the course of the later 18th century, cheap
porcelainPorcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
took over the market for refined faience; in the early 19th century, fine
stonewareStoneware a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic ware of fine texture made primarily from non-refractory fire clay.-Description:Stoneware's maturation temperature ranges from about 1200 °C to 1315 °C . In essence, it is man-made stone...
—fired so hot that the unglazed body vitrifies—closed the last of the traditional makers'
ateliers even for
beer stein Beer stein or simply Stein is English for the German term "Steinkrug", a traditional beer mug similar to the lighter tankard...
s. At the low end of the market, local manufactories continued to supply regional markets with coarse and simple wares.
Faïence revival
In the 1870s, the Aesthetic movement, notably in Britain, rediscovered the robust charm of faience, and the large porcelain manufactories marketed revived faience, such as the "Majolica ware" of Minton and of
WedgwoodWedgwood, strictly Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a British pottery firm, founded on May 1 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood, which in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal, creating Waterford Wedgwood, the Ireland-based luxury brands group. The company still exists as a subsidiary within the group, with its own...
.
Types of faience
Many centres of traditional manufacture are recognized, even some individual
ateliers. A partial list follows.
France
- Desvres faience
- Aprey faience
- Gien faience
- Lyon faience
- Lunéville faience
- Marseille faience
- Moustiers faience
- Nevers faience
- Quimper faience
Quimper faience is produced in a factory near Quimper, in Brittany, France. Since 1708, Quimper faience is painted by hand, and production continues to this day....
- Saint-Porchaire ware
Saint-Porchaire ware is the earliest very high quality French pottery. It is white faience ware that was made for a restricted French clientele from the 1520s to the 1540s. Only about sixty pieces of this ware survive, all of them well known before World War II. None have turned up in the last...
, for comparison
- Mesves sur Loire faiencehttp://www.faienceetgres.com
Germany
- Abtsbessingen faience
- Nürnberg faience
- Öttingen–Schrattenhofen faience
Öttingen-Schrattenhofen faience refers to a special type of tin-glazed faience from Bavaria, Germany, in Rococo style. It was popular during the 18th and 19th centuries....
- Schleswig faience
- Stockelsdorf faience - :de:Stockelsdorfer Fayencemanufaktur
- Stralsund faience (closed 1792) - :de:Stralsunder Fayencenmanufaktur
United States
- California Faience (Berkeley)
- Ephraim Faience Pottery
Ephraim Faience Pottery is an art pottery company founded in 1996 in Madison, Wisconsin by Kevin Hicks and two partners who have since left the company. It is now located in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. The company produces art pottery in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts Movement with matte glazes...
- Herman Carl Mueller
Herman Carl Mueller , noted ceramicist, was the founder of the Mueller Mosaic Company of Trenton. Mueller's tile work is found in many prominent government building, schools, homes, and in portions of the New York City Subway.-Biography:Herman Carl Mueller moved to the United States from Germany...
, Mueller Mosaic Company, Trenton, New JerseyTrenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of 2007, the United States Census Bureau estimated that the City of Trenton had a population of 82,804....
On-line bibliographic references