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Faience orfaïence (/faɪˈɑːns,feɪˈ-,-ˈɒ̃s/;French:[fajɑ̃s]ⓘ) is the generalEnglish language term for finetin-glazed pottery. The invention of a whitepottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of anoxide of tin to theslip of alead glaze, was a major advance in thehistory of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. Akiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result, after millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions ofporcelain styles.
English generally uses various other terms for well-known sub-types of faience. Italian tin-glazed earthenware, at least the early forms, is calledmaiolica in English, Dutch wares are calledDelftware, and their English equivalentsEnglish delftware, leaving "faience" as the normal term in English for French, German, Spanish, Portuguese wares and those of other countries not mentioned (it is also the usual French term, andfayence in German). The namefaience is simply the French name forFaenza, in theRomagna nearRavenna, Italy, where a painted majolica ware on a clean, opaque pure-white ground, was produced for export as early as the fifteenth century.
Technically,lead-glazed earthenware, such as the French sixteenth-centurySaint-Porchaire ware, does not qualify as faience, but the distinction is not usually maintained. Semi-vitreousstoneware may be glazed like faience.Egyptian faience is not really faience, or pottery, at all, but made of a vitreousfrit, and so closer to glass.
In English 19th-century usage "faience" was often used to describe "any earthenware withrelief modelling decorated with coloured glazes",[1] including muchglazed architectural terracotta andVictorian majolica, adding a further complexity to the list of meanings of the word.
TheMoors brought the technique oftin-glazed earthenware toAl-Andalus, where the art oflustreware with metallic glazes was perfected. From at least the 14th century,Málaga in Andalusia and laterValencia exported these "Hispano-Moresque wares", either directly or via theBalearic Islands to Italy and the rest of Europe. Later these industries continued under Christian lords.
"Majolica" and "maiolica" are garbled versions of "Maiorica",[2] theisland ofMajorca, which was a transshipping point for refined tin-glazed earthenwares shipped toItaly from thekingdom of Aragon at the close of theMiddle Ages. This type of pottery owed much to its Moorish inheritance.
In Italy, locally produced tin-glazed earthenwares, now calledmaiolica, initiated in the fourteenth century, reached a peak in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. After about 1600, these lost their appeal to elite customers, and the quality of painting declined, with geometric designs and simple shapes replacing the complicated and sophisticated scenes of the best period. Production continues to the present day in many centres, and the wares are again called "faience" in English (though usually stillmaiolica in Italian). At some point "faience" as a term for pottery fromFaenza in northern Italy was a general term used in French, and then reached English.[3]
The first northerners to imitate the tin-glazed earthenwares being imported from Italy were the Dutch.Delftware is a kind of faience, made at potteries round Delft in theNetherlands, characteristically decorated in blue on white. It began in the early sixteenth century on a relatively small scale, imitating Italian maiolica, but from around 1580 it began to imitate the highly sought-afterblue and whiteChinese export porcelain that was beginning to reach Europe, soon followed byJapanese export porcelain. From the later half of the century the Dutch were manufacturing and exporting very large quantities, some in its own recognisably Dutch style, as well as copying East Asian porcelain.
In France, the first well-known painter of faïence wasMasseot Abaquesne, established in Rouen in the 1530s.Nevers faience andRouen faience were the leading French centres of faience manufacturing in the 17th century, both able to supply wares to the standards required by the court and nobility. Nevers continued the Italianistoriato maiolica style, painted with figurative subjects, until around 1650. Many others centres developed from the early 18th century, led in 1690 byQuimper in Brittany[1], followed byMoustiers,Marseille,Strasbourg andLunéville and many smaller centres. The cluster of factories in the south were generally the most innovative, while Strasbourg and other centres near the Rhine were much influenced by German porcelain.
The products of faience manufactories are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of the clay body, the character and palette of theglaze, and the style of decoration,faïence blanche being left in its undecorated fired white slip.Faïence parlante (especially from Nevers) bears mottoes often on decorative labels or banners.Apothecary wares, includingalbarelli, 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 thefaïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of theFrench Revolution.
"English delftware" produced inLambeth, London, and at other centres, from the late sixteenth century, provided apothecaries with jars for wet and dry drugs, among a wide range of wares. Large painted dishes were produced for weddings and other special occasions, with crude decoration that later appealed to collectors of Englishfolk art. Many of the early potters in London were Flemish.[4] By about 1600, blue-and-white wares were being produced, labelling the contents within decorative borders. The production was slowly superseded in the first half of the eighteenth century with the introduction of cheapcreamware.
Dutch potters in northern (and Protestant) Germany established German centres of faience: the first manufactories in Germany were opened atHanau (1661) and Heusenstamm (1662), soon moved to nearbyFrankfurt. In Switzerland,Zunfthaus zur Meisen nearFraumünster church houses the porcelain and faience collection of theSwiss National Museum inZürich.
By the mid-18th centuries many French factories produced (as well as simpler wares) pieces that followed theRococo styles of the French porcelain factories and often hired and trained painters with the skill to produce work of a quality that sometimes approached them.
The products of French faience manufactories, rarely marked, are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of thebody, the character and palette of theglaze, 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 forapothecaries, includingalbarello, 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 theFaïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of theFrench Revolution.
In the course of the later 18th century, cheaperporcelain, and the refined earthenwares first developed inStaffordshire pottery such ascreamware took over the market for refined faience. The French industry was given a nearly fatal blow by a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1786, much lobbied for byJosiah Wedgwood, which set the import duty on Englishearthenware at a nominal level.[5] In the early 19th century, finestoneware—fired so hot that the unglazed bodyvitrifies—closed the last of the traditional makers'ateliers even forbeer steins. At the low end of the market, local manufactories continued to supply regional markets with coarse and simple wares, and many local varieties have continued to be made in versions of the old styles as a form offolk art, and today for tourists.
In the 19th century twoglazing techniques revived byMinton were: 1.Tin-glazed pottery in the style of Renaissance Italianmaiolica and, 2. The pottery of coloured glazes decoration over unglazed earthenware molded in low relief. At theGreat Exhibition of 1851 and at the International Exhibition of 1862[6] both were exhibited. Both are known today asVictorian majolica.[7] The coloured glazes majolica wares were later also made byWedgwood and numerous smallerStaffordshire potteries roundBurslem andStoke-on-Trent. At the end of the nineteenth century,William de Morgan re-discovered the technique of lustered faience "to an extraordinarily high standard".[8]
The termfaience broadly encompassed finely glazed ceramic beads, figures and other small objects found inEgypt as early as 4000 BC, as well as in theAncient Near East, theIndus Valley Civilisation and Europe. However, this material is not pottery at all, containing no clay, but a vitreousfrit, either self-glazing or glazed. TheMetropolitan Museum of Art displays a piece known as "William the Faience Hippopotamus" fromMeir, Egypt, dated to theTwelfth Dynasty of Egypt,c. 1981–1885 BC.[10] Different to those of ancient Egypt in theme and composition, artefacts of theNubian Kingdom ofKerma are characterized by extensive amounts of blue faience, which was developed by the natives of Kerma independently of Egyptian techniques.[11][12][13] Examples of ancient faience are also found inMinoan Crete, which was likely influenced by Egyptian culture. Faience material, for instance, has been recovered from theKnossos archaeological site.[14]
Many centres of traditional manufacture are recognized, as well as some individualateliers. A partial list follows.
English delftware is a term for English faience, mostly of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Not all of it imitated Dutch delftware, though much did. It was replaced by the much bettercreamware and other types of refined earthenwareStaffordshire pottery developed in the 18th century, many of which did not need tin-glazes to achieve a white colour. These were hugely successful and exported to Europe and the Americas. They are not called "faience" in English, but may be in other languages, e.g. creamware was known asfaience fine in France.
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