The tumultuous years of the French Revolution left France’s prestigious decorative arts industries poised on the brink of ruin. It was not until after the fall of the monarchy and the ascendancy of the Consulat and Empire under Napoleon that they began to recover so that by the middle of the nineteenth century they stood at the pinnacle of their achievement. This book is the first in depth study of the renowned porcelain works at Sèvres during its virtual rebirth under the 47 year direction of the scientist, teacher, and administrator Alexandre Brongniart. Some 110 working drawings from the Sèvres Archive are reproduced here for the first time in color. They celebrate the high skill of the artists whose work often documented contemporary events in France. There are table services in the 'Egyptian' and 'Etruscan' taste as well as individual pieces that recall Napoleonic military campaigns. There are also exquisite Neoclassical decorations using motifs such as birds, butterflies, and insects that reflect the century’s early fascination with the natural sciences. The repertoire of nineteenth century eclecticism is evident in the output of Sèvres from the revival of Gothic and renaissance motifs to the outburst of naturalism. Eleven essays by leading authorities assess this dynamic period.

The definitive catalog of this important collection

The material for this book arose from the author’s research into porcelains over many years, as a collector in appreciation of their artistic beauty , as an analytical chemist in the scientific interrogation of their body paste, enamel pigments and glaze compositions, and as a ceramic historian in the assessment of their manufactory foundations and their correlation with available documentation relating to their recipes and formulations. A discussion of the role of analysis in the framework of a holistic assessment of artworks and specifically the composition of porcelain, namely hard paste, soft paste, phosphatic, bone china and magnesian, is followed by its growth from its beginnings in China to its importation into Europe in the 16th Century. A survey of European porcelain manufactories in the 17th and 18th Centuries is followed by a description of the raw materials, minerals and recipes for porcelain manufacture and details of the chemistry of the high temperature firing processes involved therein. The historical backgrounds to several important European factories are considered, highlighting the imperfections in the written record that have been perpetuated through the ages. The analytical chemical information derived from the interrogation of specimens, from fragments, shards or perfect finished items, is reviewed and operational protocols established for the identification of a factory output from the data presented. Several case studies are examined in detail across several porcelain manufactories to indicate the role adopted by modern analytical science, with information provided at the quantitative elemental oxide and qualitative molecular spectroscopic levels, where applicable. The attribution of a specimen to a particular factory is either supported thereby or in some cases a potential reassessment of an earlier attribution is indicated. Overall, the information provided by analytical chemical data is seen to be extremely useful for porcelain identification and for its potential attribution in the context of a holistic forensic evaluation of hitherto unknown porcelain exemplars of questionable factory origins.

Simona Raneri, Germana Barone, Vincenza Crupi, Francesca Longo, Domenico Majolino, Paolo Mazzoleni, Davide Tanasi, Josè Teixeira and Venuti Valentina Technological analysis of Sicilian prehistoric pottery production through small angle neutron scattering techniqueSimona Raneri, Germana Barone, Paolo Mazzoleni, Davide Tanasi and Emanuele Costa Mobility of men versus mobility of goods: archaeometric characterization of Middle Bronze Age pottery in Malta and Sicily (15th-13th century BC)Judit Molera, Javier Iñañez, Glòria Molina, Josep Burch, Xavier Alberch, Michael D. Glascock and Trinitat Pradell Lustre and glazed ceramic collection from Mas Llorens, 16th-17th centuries (Salt, Girona). Provenance and technologyCelestino Grifa, Alberto De Bonis, Vincenza Guarino, Chiara Maria Petrone, Chiara Germinario, Mariano Mercurio, Gianluca Soricelli, Alessio Langella and Vincenzo Morra Thin walled pottery from Alife (Northern Campania, Italy)Svetlana Valiulina and Tatiana Shlykova Iranian Bowl from Biliar: Complex Research and ConservationFatma Madkour, Hisham Imam, Khaled Elsayed and Galila Meheina Elemental Analysis Study of Glazes and Ceramic Bodies from Mamluk and Ottoman Periods in Egypt by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) Fernanda Inserra, Alessandra Pecci, Miguel Ángel Cau Ontiveros and Jordi Roig Buxó Organic residues analysis of Late Antique pottery from Plaça Major-Horts de Can Torras (Castellar del Vallés, Catalonia, Spain)Marino Maggetti, Andreas Heege and Vincent Serneels Technological aspects of an early 19th c. English and French white earthenware assemblage from Bern (Switzerland)Leandro Fantuzzi, Miguel A. Cau Ontiveros and Josep Maria Macias Amphorae from the Late Antique city of Tarraco-Tarracona (Catalonia, Spain): archaeometric characterizationShlomo Shoval and Yitzhak Paz Analyzing the fired-clay ceramic of EBA Canaanite pottery using FT-IR spectroscopy and LA-ICP-MS

The British Museum collection of French porcelain numbers almost 300 pieces. This fully illustrated catalogue includes descriptions and discussions of many pieces which have never before been published.