19th Century French Hand Painted Faience Wall Bagpipe from PB Quimper

$625

About

This decorative antique wall object was sculpted in Quimper France, circa 1890. The Porquier-Beau ceramic bagpipe with large bow in high relief at the top, features a hand painted courting scene with a couple in traditional clothing. The faience piece could be used as a dry flowers vase on a kitchen wall, or place on a shelf. The bagpipe is in excellent condition with rich colors and is signed “PB” on the back. Quimper is a town in Brittany, North West France. The town has long been famous for producing faience – tin-glazed pottery. Faience is not peculiar to Quimper, indeed it is made in various places throughout Europe, but the Quimper faience is quite distinctive. Typical pieces have a white background with designs that nearly always include blue, and often green, yellow and orange. Traditional Breton figures often feature in the designs, the men with wide-brimmed round-crowned hats and the women with full skirts and aprons. Pottery has been made in Quimper for a very long time, but the faience that we recognize as Quimper has been produced since the late 17th century by three factories. The first was Grand Maison, and it preceded the other two by nearly a century. Its mark was HB, the H for Hubaudière, the name of the family that owned it from the early 18th-early 20th century, and the B for Bousquet, the name of the founder. The second was Porquier, founded in the middle of the second half of the 18th century, followed a few years later by the third, Henriot. Identifying the factories by the marks can by confusing. Porquier used AB for a short time, but mostly PB. Henriot used HR, but the Grand Maison didn’t like it, saying that it could easily be confused with HB. They took the matter to law, and Henriot had to stop using it, opting for HenRiot instead. Porquier folded in the very early years of the 20th century, and in 1913 Henriot bought their molds and the right to use their marks. Subsequently the Porquier designs were made by Henriot and marked PB. Measures: 7″ W x 11″ H.

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