Antique French Confit Pot with Ear Handles, Large

Period: 19th century

Size: 7½ inches tall, 6¼ inches in diameter, 7¾ inches across the handles, 5¼ inch opening

A tall salt-glazed grès storage pot with two applied ear handles, oreilles in French, ribbed along the top where the potter drew a tool across the wet clay. The body is a warm orange brown with the fine pebbled surface that salt thrown into the kiln leaves behind, and a band of incised lines runs around the shoulder. The rim steps in to a short pale collar where a lid once sat, and the interior is glazed a pale grey with the throwing rings still visible. The base is bare buff clay. One handle has a chip at its foot exposing the pale clay beneath, and there is a fine line at the base of the other. Wear consistent with age and use, sold as found.

Historical Context

Pots like this were the working storage of the French larder, holding rendered fat, salted meat, confit, or lard through the winter. The stoneware traditions of northern and eastern France, Normandy, the Beauvaisis, the Puisaye, and Alsace, fired them hard enough to be fully waterproof, and salt vaporized in the kiln fused with the clay surface to make the glaze itself. The ear handles took a cord or a cloth tie to hold a lid or paper cover down.

Styling Ideas

This is a size that holds its own on the counter. Fill it with wooden spoons and rolling pins beside the stove, use it as a cachepot for a fern or an olive branch, or set it on a shelf with its smaller mate for a run of matching orange brown that warms a white kitchen.