My old French faïence Sarreguemines milk Pitcher

This is a French faience milk pitcher (pot à lait ) with a brown glaze ” terre carmélite “. A fine example by the renowned French faiencerie Sarreguemines. It is clearly marked with the impressed Sarreguemines mark, France and the numeric code 6B in black, c.1910.

Sarreguemines: Two Centuries of Faience

• 1790 Production started in 1790 when Nicolas-Henri Jacobi, set up the first factory despite the unfavourable economic climate. Napoleon I became one of his best customers and ordered several pieces. The business expanded so much that he had to open new workshops .

• 1800 Paul Utzschneider took over the factory and introduced new decorating techniques.

• 1810 New lands colored appear: terre carmélite (brown), terre d’Egypte (black) and terre de Naples (yelow).
• 1836 Utzschneider handed over the management of the factory to his son-in-law, Alexandre de Geiger.
  

• 1838 Alexandre de Geiger associated himself with Villeroy & Boch. This agreement contributed to the growth of production.
• 1871 Following the annexation of the Moselle to Germany, Alexandre de Geiger left Sarreguemines and retired in Paris. His son, Paul de Geiger, took over the management. Two new factories were constructed at Digoin and Vitry-le-François.

• 1913 The Utzschneider & Cie was split into two companies, one responsible for the establishment in Sarreguemines and the other for the French factories.
• 1919 After the First World War, they were united under the name of Sarreguemines – Digoin – Vitry-le-François and run by the Cazal family.
• 1940-1944 During the Second World War,the faience factories were sequestered and their management entrusted to Villeroy & Boch between 1942 and 1944.
• 1979 After stopping production of porcelain and majolica, the company was bought over by the Lunéville – Badonviller – Saint Clément group, and then took the name of Sarreguemines – Bâtiment in 1982.
• Today Sarreguemines Vaisselle remains one of the leading porcelain manufacturers in the world. The factory produces about 5000 tons of porcelain each year or about 13 million pieces.

The Sarreguemines Faience

The term faience comes from a kind of brightly-colored glazed earthenware developed during the Renaissance in France and Italy. The word is derived from Faenza, a town in Italy, where factories making the tin-glazed earthenware called majolica were prevalent.

Sarreguemines marks

Pots, cruches et boites by Bernard Bassac

 

 

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My snuff box ” LA BIENNOISE” – 19th

Snuff box ” LA BIENNOISE”, trademark.

African acajou wood and metal silver, c.1870s,

8,5 X 4,5 cm.

One of the more functional types of decorative boxes is the snuff box, which is now largely a relic of the once popular practice of taking snuff. At one time, this tiny decorative but utilitarian box was an indispensable accessory for every man of birth and breeding from the 18th century through the middle of the 19th century.
Artisans, such as the jeweller and the enameller bestowed infinite pains upon this object, which was as much a delicate bijou as a piece of utility. Gentlemen of Quality, fops, and dandies possessed a great variety of snuff-boxes, some of which were quite rich in detail, with frames of gold encased with diamonds. Other boxes were more ordinary. Made with potato-pulp, the cheapest wood available, they were extensively used.

Snuff is a generic term for fine-ground smokeless tobacco products. Originally the term referred only to dry snuff, a fine tan dust popular mainly in the eighteenth century. This is often called “Scotch Snuff”, a folk-etymology derivation of the scorching process used to dry the cured tobacco by the factory. Snuff powder originated in the UK town of Great Harwood and was famously ground in the town’s monument prior to local distribution and transport further up north to Scotland
Types of Snuff
European (dry) snuff is intended to be sniffed up the nose. Snuff is not “snorted” because snuff shouldn’t get past the nose, i.e.; into sinuses, throat or lungs. European snuff comes in several varieties: Plain, Toast (fine ground – very dry), “Medicated” (menthol, camphor, eucalyptus, etc.), Scented, and Schmalzler, a German variety. The major brand names of European snuffs are: Toque Tobacco (UK), Bernards (Germany), Fribourg & Treyer (UK), Gawith (UK), Gawith Hoggarth] (UK), Hedges (UK), Lotzbeck (Germany), McChrystal’s (UK), Pöschl (Germany) and Wilsons of Sharrow (UK), TUTUN-CTC (Moldova).

Another “La Biennoise” snuff box

• Did you know… Snus (Swedish: “snuff”) is a moist powder tobacco product that is consumed by placing it under the upper lip for extended periods of time. It was originally developed from powdered snuff that was inhaled through the nostrils. Snus is manufactured and consumed primarily in Sweden and Norway. A version has recently been introduced into the United States and is being test-marketed by two major American tobacco companies as well as one Swedish company. However, the health effects of these new versions of snus have not yet been studied.

• Did you know… the first tobacco plantation was in the United States? It was established in Virginia in 1612!

« Snuff box » a BBC Three sketch show

Snuff Box (sometimes referred to as Berry & Fulcher’s Snuff Box) is a BBC Three sketch show starring and written by Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher. If you enjoy the weird and wacky, cult style comedy then Snuff Box is a must watch.

Berry and Fulcher walking down the corridor

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My two french Limoges plates

This ornate Pair of French porcelain plates is decorated with delicate hand painted floral bouquets on a white background framed in gilt scrollwork.

Signed: J.Roux and J.Ripat

The Limoges Porcelain

Limoges porcelain designates hard-paste porcelain produced by factories round the city of Limoges, France from the late 1700s until around 1930.

The manufacturing of hard-paste porcelain at Limoges, following the discovery of local supplies of kaolin, was established by Turgot in 1771 and placed under the patronage of the comte d’Artois, brother of Louis XVI. Limoges had been the site of a minor industry producing plain faience earthenwares since the 1730s, but the first identified French source of kaolin and a material similar to petuntse, the ingredients used for the production of hard-paste porcelain similar to Chinese porcelain, were discovered at Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, near Limoges, in an economically distressed area, and began to be quarried in 1768. The manufactory was purchased by the king in 1784, apparently with the idea of producing hard-paste bodies for decoration at Sèvres, a venture that did not work out.

After the Revolution a number of private factories were established at Limoges, the chief of which was and remains Haviland. “Limoges porcelain” is a generic term for porcelain produced in Limoges rather than the production of a specific factory. Limoges maintains the position it established in the nineteenth century as the premier manufacturing city of porcelain in France.

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