Limoges porcelain

Limoges porcelain designates hard-paste porcelain produced by factories round the city of Limoges, France from the late 1700s and is still ongoing

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. Thus "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.

Current manufacturers include Havilland, etc.

Today classic Limoges design is used by manufacturers in Thailand, reproducing the famous porcelain at a fraction of the cost of the French manufacturers.

References

*M. Ernoud-Gandouet, "La Céramique en France au XIXe siècle" (Paris) 1969.
*Mary Frank Gaston, "The Collector's Encyclopedia of Limoges".
*Nancy du Tertre, "The Art of the Limoges Box" (2003).