Soft–paste porcelain; H. 5 in. (12.7 cm)
Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1950 (50.211.186)
Porcelain was highly prized in seventeenth-century Europe, and the popularity of imported Chinese and Japanese porcelains led to various experiments in France to produce porcelain domestically. The French were skilled at making faience (tin-glazed earthenware), but the ingredients for true or hard-paste porcelainas produced in Asiawere not known to French potters at this time.
The most successful experiments in producing an artificial porcelain, known as soft-paste, were carried out in small faience factories in Saint-Cloud and Rouen. The Saint-Cloud factory eventually was able to manufacture soft-paste porcelain on a viable, commercial scale, but the production of soft-paste in Rouen remained on a very limited and experimental basis.
This pot pourri is one of the very few surviving examples of Rouen porcelain. None of the porcelain made in Rouen bears a factory mark, so the attribution to Rouen is based on the style of the decoration and on the noticeably bluish cast of the glaze, which appears to be a common characteristic of Rouen porcelain.