Description
Superb rectangular platter, Quimper faience signed Porquier PB-Beau, representing a picturesque scene with a narrator telling a story to a young woman and her two children in the garden of a cottage, decorated with coats of arms (crowned shield flanked by two lions) at the top.
The condition is excellent, no chips. Missing glaze from original firing.
In 1875, the painter Alfred Beau joined the pottery Porquier. Alfred Beau is the first artist to give a creative breath to Quimper pottery. In collaboration with Porquier from 1873 to 1903, he created lavish sets: Botanical series called yellow-edged (about 122 different models listed), Breton scenes (about 225 models) and scenes from legends (7 models) and views of Breton landscapes (about 20 models).
This platter measures 11 ½” x 15” and it has a hanging wire attached. Shipping at the expense of purchaser.
Alfred Beau ended his formal arrangement with the Porquier factory in 1894; after that date and until the factory ceased production in 1903…closing its doors for good in 1904…the factory added a serif to the trefoil “PB” mark. Again, the painter-decorators had ingrained habits and there are instances where the earlier, sans serif mark can be found on examples made after 1894.
