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I have included here only the terms I use most frequently in our French descriptions of antique faience, porcelain, clocks and furniture. If there are more terms you are curious about, please email me or call 610-642-6867. I will be happy to include them here.
Bamboo
Bamboo furniture is made out of a hollow, woody stem of large grass. Bamboo have been used in furniture-making wherever grasses grow abundantly. In India and China, it was intended for outdoor use and was highly valued. The term *faux bamboo* applies to any material painted to look like bamboo. In England and France, the fashion of *Chinoiserie*, followed by *Japonisme* generated a craze for bamboo furniture and faux-bamboo painted objects. See here the use of faux-bamboo in French antique majolica:
Biedermeier
Biedermeier furniture developed in Germany from 1815 to 1850. Its characterized by simple forms, with decorations mostly restrained to large expanses of veneer. The grain of the woods, and the striking contrast of wood colors, provide the chief decor. A Biedermeier revival arose in the late nineteen century, which lasted into the 1920's.
http://www.french-corner-antiques.com/detail.php?iid=225
Bobeche: French for spindles or finials: small wood turned decorative elements. In Provence, they are turned like olives. In Brittany they are designed after the lace makers bobbins.
Buffet a Horloge: French country buffet with open shelving plate rack mounted with a Comtoise clock.
Burr of Wood, in French "Loupe" : burr is taken from the widest part of the tree roots, with vein forming swirling-like patterns. In Bresse, walnuts and elms are the most popular trees for burr.
Ceramics: Common term for any object made of clay and fired over 500 degrees centigrade. The main categories of ceramic wares are: earthenware, faience, stoneware, creamware and porcelain.
Chaise a Sel: seat directly related to French history and the Gabelle, or salt tax. This French antique seat (chair or bench) was made to store - and at times hide - salt. It was used in all French provinces.
Compagnonage: See under Guild
Comtoise: Also called Morbier or Morez, these French antique clocks originate from the French Jura. Morbier and Morez are towns, whereas Franche-Comte is the region where these towns are located. These works emerged at the end of the 17th c. Starting as wall-hanging clocks, fancy wood cases were added much later, transforming them into what we now call French grand fathers clocks.
Dating French antique faience: Although dating antique faience and porcelain requires considerable expertise, there is a margin of uncertainty admitted by antique dealers and collectors. The consensus is that there can be a quarter of a century flexibility in establishing the period of an antique faience, unless it has a mark. So when we say c. 1800, the piece could be approximately 1775 to 1825.
Delft faience: Emigrant Italian potters set up faience works in the Netherlands and France. It was in Delft in the 17 century that faience broke free from the Italian tradition. The powerful Dutch East India Company imported porcelain from China. As it was considered a rare exotic commodity, the Delft potters had to compete. They perfected their traditional faience techniques to attain such high quality as the porcelain from China. Using clay selected to produce the thinnest and lightest of vessels, their faience was covered by an extra glaze coating, giving the surface a brilliance that matched that of porcelain. The porcelain pieces imported from China were mostly decorated in cobalt blue. Thus Dutch faience workshops would subsequently adopt this minimal monochrome palette.
Dovetail, *queues d aronde* in French: Tenons made in shape of swallow tail are inserted in a hole of similar shape to assemble two parts. Dating back from the Archaic period, dovetail examples were recently discovered near Ottawa, Canada.
Earthenware: A clay body which is red or brown in color and fired at relatively low temperature. The iron oxide gives it a red color. Earthenware refers to the clay body. It is porous if not covered with glaze. Earthenware is grouped according to the manner of decoration and glazing into Delftware, majolica or faience. Delft comes from Holland, majolica from Italy, faience from France. But all have a TIN GLAZE.
Ebeniste is French for master craftsman. In France, Companions were trained in a Guild before they could be a "grand maitre" in their trade.
At each stage of his tour de France the companion lives in companion houses where warm fraternity and solidarity complement his learning process. There he also learns that the transmission of knowledge is a duty. Manual work is highly valued, and by uniting hand and thought, the companions participation to the "Creative Process" is consecrated. As he travels across France for 5 yo 7 years, the companion is part of an elitist group that demands excellence for every task.
In order to bear the "Grand Maitre" title, the Companion must create a unique craft, his "chef d oeuvre".
Evaluating French antique faience requires a lot of experience. Multiple factors other than the mark must be considered for determining a period: clay type, weight, color of clay if visible under glaze, color and type of decor, style, technique of making and of firing. As far as value is concerned, other aspects than age impact on price. So when Guy and I select an antique, we need at least five or six compelling reasons -in addition to the price, to make our decision.
Faience is generally defined as tin glazed earthenware. It is a mixture of local clays to which oxide of tin is added, so that it can become opaque and take on a white color. Hiding the impurities of the underlying clay body, it imitates the fineness of porcelain. A hand painted decoration is added to the clear surface. Faience became popular in Holland, Italy and France in the 17th century. The word faience is also associated with the town of Faenza in Italy. See here for a perfect example of French antique faience:
Farinaio is a Provencal antique French flour box, a wood container that served to mix flour and tiny fish before frying. Had four small feet and was hung on kitchen walls. Existed mostly in the south of France.
French Folk art refers to objects handmade by untrained people for their daily use or for decorative purposes. The question as to whether folk art can also be industrially made is much debated in the U.S. now, with the American Folk Art Museum including some mass produced pieces in their collection. In Paris, the Folk Art Museum (Musee des Arts et Traditions Populaires) include only rustic, individually made pieces done by peasants, and in general by people not artistically trained in art schools. Their French folk art objects are made by common folks in the course of their daily activity. Open this link to meet the Parisian Musee des Arts et Traditions Populaires:
http://www.rmn.fr/gb/02musees/01presentation/musees/traditions/traditions.html
and from our collection, this pefect example of folk art:
Grand feu refers to high fire faience. High temperature kiln were used to fire the body and the glaze of porcelain or faience, between 1100 to 1450. The traditional polychrome decor which was brilliantly developed in Renaissance Italy consists of applying colors to an unfired tin glaze base or faience. Subsequent firing of the piece at 1000 degrees centigrade restrains the decor to the few colors that can take such a high temperature: blue, violet, green, yellow, orange. The unfired faience glaze constitutes a pulverulent layer that absorbs the pigment, allowing no mistakes or chance for correction by the painter. Upon firing the pigments blend with the base.
Grotesque applies to fancifully bizarre decoration discovered at the end of the 15th century in Rome. Half human - half animal forms amid tendril-like foliage and scrolls adorn architecture, antique French faience, porcelain and garden ornaments.
Guild: See under Ebeniste
Mantel clocks and French antique "Parures de Cheminee" are part of the French formal home decor. They incorporate various exotic materials: bronze, marble, exotic woods with inlays, crystal, porcelain. They included inserts of mother of pearl or ivory, sometimes even precious stones. Imagine our surprise to find a large collection of antique clocks at the Forbidden City in Beijing, the majority of which were . . . French clocks!
When French antique mantel clocks were made with candelabra, the set was called “Parure de Cheminee”. See our French antique faience clock "Parure de Cheminee":
http://www.french-corner-antiques.com/detail.php?iid=12
Monochrome Decor means that a single color is applied on a white background.
Oeil de Boeuf are round or oval French antique wall clocks. Named after the shape of the windows that were first built in Versailles for Louis XIV (reign 1643-1715), they are extremely popular today for their wall power. I like the playfulness and drama of the mother of pearls and brass inlays that seem to dance on dark wood background. Their chime is made out of a coil; it chimes at the hour the number of hours and once at the half hour:
or view a more complete description here:
http://www.french-corner-antiques.com/detail.php?iid=90
Panetiere refers to a French antique bread cabinet popular mostly in Provence. It hangs on a wall but the four feet are remnants of the original design, when it did stand on top of a petrin-table.
Petit Feu refers to the firing process used in French antique faience manufacture. In the low fire process, firing takes place in 2 steps: first the base glaze is fired. Because the surface is harder and smoother, the brush stroke is more precise than in the Grand feu - high fire -method. Enamels are fixed to the faience base by a second firing between 600 and 900 degrees centigrade. This relatively low temperature allows a wider range of colors in various tones, in particular those derived from purple.
Polychrome Decor: refers to antique French faience decorated in multiple colors.
Porcelain is a mix of quartz, feldspar and kaolin to produce an extremely pure white clay with a transparent body. Modern porcelain developed in early 18th century England and Meissen, Germany. The French caught on in Strasbourg, Luneville, St Clement and Sarreguemines.
Pottery includes ceramics with the exclusion of porcelain. Sometimes the term pottery is used to denote only the more rustic and heavy earthenwares and stonewares.
Puisaye is the name of a region of France, South West of Paris. In Puisaye, the tableware and food storage containers are distinct from all other regions in France. Their particularity is that they are hand turned on the potters wheel and salt glazed during the firing process. They feature a rope design of concentric circles all along their body that is due to the rope used while raising the clay on the wheel. The French call the local clay "argile." Its body vitrifies when fired at high temperature in horizontal kilns (the French term is: "vitrifier dans la masse".) This produces very resistant vessels, suitable for food because impervious to liquids.
Salt Glaze is the process of throwing salt during the firing process to randomly decorate the clay body. In Puisaye, this resulted in a flow of tear-shaped translucid drops. These salt-glazed drops add value to Puisaye wares: the more drops on a French antique Puisaye, the more costly it is.
A slipper chair is a small high-backed upholstered chair, with a fairly low seat. It is mostly used in bedrooms.
Stoneware is a heavy clay, gray or brown, opaque and highly plastic, that is fired at high temperature - nearing 1000 degrees centigrade, thus enabling the glazes to vitrify. The term stoneware refers to the clay body and to the objects made from it. The Chinese craftsmen fired stoneware at 1000 degrees centigrade in 1000 BC under the Zhou dynasty, then perfected the process to 1200 degrees centigrade in 700 BC.
Table de Denteliere, lace makers table or hat makers tables, as they were also called, looked like French antique dining tables but had drawers all around their tops, to accommodate the individuals who performed their craft there.
Table de Frontalier
A Frontalier is a person who lives or works across the borders between France and Switzerland, in the high valleys of the Alps. Some objects of art, mostly wood-crafted, were made by sheperds living during summer in the Alpages, or high valleys, taking their herds of cattle on pasturelands where frontiers are not visible. Shepherds, usually boys, attended grazing cattle from age eight or nine. From dawn to sunset, their main occupation was to play with their pocket knife and carve whatever branches and woods they could pick up. They made and played their own flutes, and acquired carving skills. Self taught craftsmen created unusual objects, sometimes very personal. Objects they could utilize while living in the Alps. This table is an example of such a rare, one-of-a-king, fine crafts.
The open-work table top integrates a hole for the cordial glass and two lidded boxes for storage of tobacco and pipes, a place for matches and a math striker, and a candle holder. It is carved in a thick solid piece of wood and is transportable by un-screwing the table top from its base. The provenance is clear, with the selective choice of Edelweiss carvings. The style previews the Art Nouveau period, with wavy tabletop structure following the curves and the sinuous lines or the rounded branches it is made of.
Here are two cose-ups of the carvings:
This is an object designed with a specific use and a single purpose in mind, not unlike what Thomas Jefferson and his peers used for themselves.
Table-Huche is a purely utilitarian piece of French country antique furniture. As for the salt chair (chaise a sel), French dining tables - tables huches - also have several uses. Whether it was a large drawer or a big space under the table top itself, these food storage compartments were meant to combine two functions into one piece of furniture: serve the food and preserve it from bugs and dust, as there were no refrigerators at the time..
Tenon et mortaise: French for stud and mortise
Terra cotta is Earthenware, a reddish clay body, lightly fired and usually unglazed.