CIRCA 1881 AND 1904, THE BLUE-GROUND PAIR WITH INCISED SIGNATURE AND 1881, THE GREY-GROUND PAIR WITH INCISED SEVRES MARK, SIGNATURE AND 1904

Taxile Maximin Doat (1851–1939) was a French ceramicist who experimented extensively with high-fired glazes on stoneware and porcelain. He wrote about his methods in his 1905 text, Grand Feu Ceramics, which helped spread his discoveries internationally. The influence of his work is apparent in the types of glazes on studio pottery made across Europe in the twentieth century. Between 1877 and 1905, Doat worked at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres and privately from his own atelier nearby, the Villa Kaolin. Doat was among the first artists at the factory to use pâte-sur-pâte, the technique of creating translucent low-relief compositions from layers of porcelain slip and it became a central feature of his work. Doat often chose allegorical or whimsical subjects, frequently setting them as plaques on a stoneware body, the sheen of the porcelain contrasting effectively with the rougher texture of the ground.