Drawing on Japan
Ceramics designed by the artist Félix Bracquemond pioneered the use of motifs drawn from Japanese art in 19th-century French decorative arts. Larry Simms publishes here two extraordinary overlooked porcelain services by Bracquemond that add greatly to our understanding of his career.
Larry Simms, Monday, 25th August 2008
For this service, Bracquemond used in addition images of exotic Japanese objects such as lanterns, fans, scrolls, baskets, teapots and mats.4 These accessoires were also copied from or inspired by Japanese prints.5 For example, a motif of a scroll was taken from the top left image on a page in the third volume of Hokusai’s Manga (Fig. 4).6 However, Bracquemond modified his model by replacing the Japanese writing with the letters ‘H&Co’, for Haviland and Company. This indicates that he made the designs for the accessoires motifs after 1872, specifically for Haviland and Company.
Haviland and Company gave the name Figures et accessoires japonais to this décor.7 Like the Service Rousseau, the Service figures et accessoires japonais is a complete table service with plates, soup bowls, cups and saucers, serving pieces and even vases (Figs. 2, and 3). It has many aesthetic and technical similarities to Bracquemond’s earlier Service Rousseau. This can be seen most clearly when comparing table plates from the two services (see Fig. 12).8 Both employ an asymmetrical arrangement that has one primary image, usually larger, and two or three supplementary images, usually smaller.9
Each dinner plate from the Service figures et accessoires japonais takes as its focal point a geisha from Braquemond’s print.10 To this are added two or three of the exotic Japanese accessoires. As in the execution of the Service Rousseau table plates, the factory worker was permitted some flexibility in the selection of the supplementary images. This is seen, for example, in two dessert plates (Fig. 6), in which the same geisha figure is accompanied by different supplementary images.
Also as in the Service Rousseau, the images in the Service figures et accessoires japonais were first transfer printed and then hand painted. The factory painters in both cases were undoubtedly given colour templates to follow, since the colours used for identical transfers are frequently the same. However, as with the Service Rousseau, variations in colour selection do occur. The two dessert plates in Figure 6 use the same geisha transfer, but one wears a kimono painted yellow while the other’s is pink.
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