What is Majolica French?
Written 7 May , 2010
Majolica refers to the brilliantly colored earthenwares that were so popular in the Victorian era in the 19th century. They come in emerald green, turquoise, sapphire, blue, pink and yellow tones. These myriad of colors make the wares look vulgar to the 20th century tastes and the popularity began to wane. These ceramics usually incorporate figural designs of flora and fauna in colorful opaque glazes.
To produce these interesting pieces of wares, they were fired, then glazed with an opaque glaze that contains tin and lead, once dried, desired colors are added. The piece is again fired and results in a brilliantly colored piece of ceramic.
Majolica fist became popular in France and Italy where a well-known French potter, Bernard Pallisy is considered master potter. Palissy is a gifted, obsessive naturalist and author who ventured into pottery. He developed molds for the wares from actual specimens and colored the designs with colors that resemble their natural tones. The works of Palissy is often referred to as Majolica French and sometimes Palissy Majolica.
Palissy is said to be a madman obsessed at producing earthen wares with flora and fauna designs. For sixteen years, he was experimenting on various techniques in order to produce a glaze that closely resembles the colors and shapes of nature. These adventures brought him into absolute poverty and he was reviled by his neighbors.
When there was nothing left for him to fire his kiln, he sacrificed his furniture and all vestiges of wood work in his home just to keep the fire burning while his wife and remaining children suffered hunger and much discomfort.
However sometime in 1584, he was able to produce what he desired – an ultra naturalistic ceramic ware with three dimensional modeled flora and fauna glazed onto them. His first work was said to be a plate glazed with colorful snakes. The success changed his and his family’s fortune and he rose to become the master potter of the Majolica French period.
The English came to adore such style and they enriched the techniques by going further and developed methods of incorporating gemstones to suit the tastes of the excessive Victorians. They also refined the techniques and they were able to reproduce in larger scales unprecedented in history. Thus, many majolica pieces now up for collection have English origins.
There were a number of successful British companies producing these wares during the 19th century and their works can be identified with the markings, usually the name of the company, imprinted in their products. Soon after, the English technologies were exported to other countries in the continent and the whole of Europe produced majolica pieces in massive scale. Some of these products reached the US as exports.