Antique French Faience Shaped Platter, Moustiers Style Bérain Decoration, 19th Century

Tin-glazed earthenware platter with a shaped, serpentine outline and a shallow well. Thickly potted and heavy in the hand. Faience is a soft, porous earthenware body, and pieces of this type were built up thick because the material has little strength on its own.

Painted in blue camaïeu, meaning a single color built up in washes and fine line work rather than a full palette.

The center follows the Bérain manner: a female bust on a draped plinth, flanked by scrolling acanthus and C-scrolls, with a canopy of drapery swags above and beaded pendants hanging from the arms. Birds perch on the bracket ends, and plumed helmet forms close the composition on both sides. The pattern comes from Jean Bérain's engraved ornament designs, which French faience workshops picked up in the late 17th century and kept repeating for generations, which is why the style runs across Rouen and Moustiers and their imitators.

The border is a solid blue band set inside a scalloped lambrequin edge, with small palmette drops falling into the well.

No maker's mark.

Dimensions
13.75" x 9.25"

Condition
Sold as found, with restoration.

Two repairs to the reverse. Painting has been touched up in places, most visibly along the blue band and border. A tight, stable hairline runs from the rim into the well. Minor glaze losses and chips along the rim edge. Pinholes and iron pops throughout the glaze, original to the firing rather than damage. Scratching, staining, and old label residue to the underside. Photos show all of it in detail.