(London, 1896); also _Fortnum Collection in the
Oxford Museum_ (London, 1896); O. von Falke, _Majolika_ (Berlin,
1896); also _Sammlung R. Zschille: Katalog der italienischen
Majoliken_ (Leipzig, 1899); Antaldi Santinelli, _Museo di Pesaro_
(Pesaro, 1897); De Mauri, _L'Amatore di Majolica_ (Milan, 1898); E.
Hannover, _De Spanske-Mauriske, og de forste Italienske Fayence_
(Copenhagen, 1906). (R. L. H.; W. B.*)

FRENCH POTTERY FROM THE 15TH TO THE 19TH CENTURY

The pottery of medieval France needs little attention here, for it was,
in the main, similar to that which was made generally in Europe--rudely
shaped vessels of ordinary clay often decorated with modelled ornament
and glazed with yellow or brown lead glaze, or, if coated with white
slip, decorated with bright green glazes, and towards the end of the
15th century with greyish blue. The later specimens of this simple
ware--pronouncedly Gothic in feeling--were often extremely decorative.
Avignon, Beauvais and Savigny are the best-known centres of this truly
national manufacture, and, as we might expect in French work, the
reliefs are often sharp and well designed. Evidence accumulates that
from time to time the princes and great nobles imported Spanish or
Italian workmen to make special tiles for the decoration of their
palaces or chapels. The duke of Burgundy brought Jehan de Moustiers and
Jehan-le-Voleur, "_ouvriers en quarrieaux peints et jolis_," in 1391, to
paint tiles for his palaces at Hesdin and Arras in the north, and we
have already referred to the tile-work in the Spanish fashion made at
Poitiers by John of Valencia, the "Saracen," in 1384 for Duke Jean de
Berry.[18] Other instances might be multiplied but that this foreign
work left little or no traces on contemporary French pottery. Even at a
later date, when Francis I. brought Girolamo della Robbia from Italy to
decorate his "Petit Chateau de Madrid" in 1529, or when Masseot
Abaquesne, about 1542, manufactured at Rouen the painted tile pavements
for the chateau of Ecouen, the cathedral of Langres, and other places,
nothing came of the imported methods; the works were executed and left
no traces on the general pottery of the country. During the 16th
century, however, two remarkable kinds of pottery were made in France of
distinctive quality, and both eminently French--the Henri-Deux ware and
the pottery of Bernard Palissy and his imitators.

_Henri-Deux_, _Oiron_ or _St Porchaire_ ware