FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
FAIENCE
Excerpted and Adapted from Escoffier, A. and P.H. Gilbert. Edited by Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud. 1961. The World Authority. Larousse Gastronomique. The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery.
is an opaque type of pottery, whitish in color or tinted to a greater or lesser degree. The earthenware is covered with tin-glaze (lead glaze made opaque by the addition of tin ashes) so that the color of the earthenware is completely masked. This pottery takes its name from the Italian town of Faena.
Very little is known about the origins of faience pottery. Nevertheless, from the very earliest times, a brilliant, vitreous lead glaze colored by means of metallic oxides was known to potters. It is to be seen in the hypogeum of Ancient Egypt, on its vases, funeral images, and also on the glazed bricks which decorated the walls of Nineveh and Babylon.
The ancient mosques of Asia Minor have preserved to us the magnificent craftsmanship of the Persians who passed on their skill to the Arabs.
From the thirteenth century, there were important centres for the manufacture of faience in Spain, at Malaga centres for the manufacture of faience in Spain, at Malaga and Majorca, which gave its name to the Italian majolica. Up to the seventeenth century, the most famous factories were in Valencia.
But it was mainly through the discovery of tin-glaze by Luca della Robbia, towards the middle of the fifteenth century, that the ceramic industry was able to develop, first at Faenza and then in various other Italian towns, whose names have become famous, notably Urbino, Gubbio, Deruta, Durante, Venice, Milan, and Turin .
In France, in the sixteenth century, faience pottery called Henry II faience was made, the most important being the very individual pieces made by Bernard Palissy. At the same period, Italian potters tried to introduce the faience industry into France. The Conradi, coming from Savona, settled at Nevers. Early abortive attempts were made in the sixteenth century to make faience in Rouen, but it was only in the seventh century to make faience in Rouen, but it was only in the seventeenth century that this town produced the beautiful specimens which remain one of the glories of the French faience industry. Tehse were very fashionable in the eighteenth century and were copied everywhere, both in France and other countries. Moustiers, from the end of the seventeenth century, made famous faience pieces in the style of Tempesta, or copied from Berain and Bernard Toro. At Strasbourg, the Hannong family in the eighteenth century created a style quickly adopted by the factories of Luneville and Niederwiller. In Paris, at Saint-Cloud, Meudon, Lillie and Marseilles, there were also a large number of less important factories.
Outside France, some of the finest work was produced at Delft in Holland, which was, for a long time, the most active centre of the faience industry in Europe.
Fine pottery, called clay pottery, made its appearance towards the middle of the eighteenth century, and this industry was most fully developed in England, in the towns of Leeds and Burslem. In France, this type of pottery was made especially at Pont-aux-Choux, in Paris at Luneville and Orleans.
With the advent of porcelain, faience became less sought-after and less highly-prized. But modern faience manufacturers have given a new lease of life to this type of pottery.
