Nevers faience
Videos
The city of Nevers, Nièvre, now in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in central France, was a centre for manufacturing faience, or tin-glazed earthenware pottery, between around 1580 and the early 19th century. Production of Nevers faience then gradually died down to a single factory, before a revival in the 1880s. In 2017, there were still two potteries making it in the city, after a third had closed. However the quality and prestige of the wares has gradually declined, from a fashionable luxury product for the court, to a traditional regional speciality using styles derived from the past.
Mustard and blue solid-body wares, 1650–80, with Turkish-inspired birds and flowers.
Nevers dish in the istoriato style, with the Triumph of Julius Caesar, very loosely after Mantegna, 1600–1630
17th-century plate with genteel party in a European-style landscape. The border has birds, flowers and a rabbit, all at the same size.
faience patriotique of the French Revolution. An aristocrat and bishop: "Unhappiness re-unites us", 1791.
In early modern France, Orientalism refers to the interaction of pre-modern France with the Orient, and especially the cultural, scientific, artistic and intellectual impact of these interactions, ranging from the academic field of Oriental studies to Orientalism in fashions in the decorative arts.
The Ambassadors, a symbol of French explorations under Francis I: the French ambassadors Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve standing around an Ottoman Holbein carpet and various objects. Painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533, National Gallery, London.
Arabic astronomical manuscript of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, annotated by Guillaume Postel.
Ottoman Empire Qur'an, copied circa 1536, bound according to regulations set under Francis I circa 1549, with arms of Henri II. Bibliothèque nationale de France.