Musée de la Faïence de Marseille
The Musée de la Faïence de Marseille was a museum in southern Marseille, France, dedicated to faience, a type of pottery. It opened to the public in June 1995, in Château Pastré at 157, Avenue de Montredon 13008 Marseille. It closed on 31 December 2012, to allow for the transfer of its collections to the new faience museum at Château Borély, the Museum of the Decorative Arts, Fashion and Ceramics, as part of preparations for Marseille becoming the European Capital of Culture in 2013.
Musée de la Faïence de Marseille
Interior of the museum
Pharmacy vase
Mascaron
Faience or faïence is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result, the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions of porcelain styles.
Modern bowl in a traditional pattern, made in Faenza, Italy, which gave its name to the type
Sophisticated Rococo Niderviller faience, by a French factory that also made porcelain, 1760–65
Hispano-Moresque ware dish from Manises, 15th century, the earliest type of European faience
Rococo tureen, Marseille, c. 1770