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Lot Essay
DALPAYRAT, DOAT, AND THE DAWN OF MODERN CERAMICS
– Paul Arthur
Dalpayrat and Doat, two very different French artists, were united by their technical prowess and their ability to inspire the ceramic aesthetics of the Belle Epoque. Both made valuable and unique, but very different, contributions to the development of art pottery in the twentieth century. The immensely prolific Dalpayrat perfected a striking oxblood red (sang-de-bœuf) copper glaze, often enlivened to great effect with splashes and streaks of green and blue.
Doat, on the other hand, achieved the most remarkable combination of neoclassical idioms, in his meticulous pâte-sur-pâte cameo ornamentation, applied to his interpretations of the Japonist ceramics that had become fashionable in late nineteenth-century Europe. Today, their attractive works are amongst the most prized by collectors and museums seeking the roots of modern ceramic art. Let us take a look at these two remarkable craftsmen a bit more closely.
Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat was born in 1844 in the city of Limoges in central France, which had become a leading centre of porcelain production since the discovery of kaolin deposits in 1765. After studying in Limoges, he worked for various manufacturers in Bordeaux, Valentine and Toulouse before arriving in Monte Carlo in 1884 to help run the decorative workshop of the Poterie de Monaco at the request of Marie Blanc, wife of the famous entrepreneur François Blanc, founder of the Casinò. Dalpayrat was clearly already a consummate artist, and after brief stints in Menton and Limoges, finally set up his own atelier in the town of Bourg-la-Reine, on the outskirts of Paris.
It is no coincidence that this was in 1889, the year of the Universal Exhibition in Paris, and that the town was already a flourishing centre for the production of ceramics by such successful practitioners as François Laurin and Ernest Chaplet, the latter being credited with the discovery of a formula for sang-de-bœuf glazed ceramics.
It was there that Dalpayrat perfected his own vivid glazes which, together with the new flambé effect, also inspired by Japanese techniques, gave his products a striking iridescent and flame-like appearance, whether they were made of reddish-brown stoneware or of white porcelain. Already praised at the Salon of 1892, and with the help of sculptors such as Alphonse Voisin-Delacroix and Jean Coulon, his works were produced in all shapes and sizes and, by the last decade of the nineteenth century, were prized throughout the Western world. Sadly, he retired to Limoges in 1906 to turn his hand to painting. He passed away four years later, but not without committing his firm to his sons, particularly Adolphe, who carried on the Dalpayrat tradition into the 1920s.
Taxile Maximin Doat was born in Albi in 1851, but began his training first at the École Adrien Dubouché in Limoges, and later at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied sculpting. Unlike the peripatetic Dalpayrat, he worked continuously for the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres near Paris from 1877 to 1905, and had already been singled out at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1889. He skillfully combined elaborate and time-consuming pâte-sur-pâte porcelain medallions with Japonist-style vases with drip and flambé glazes.
Regarded as a brilliant innovator, he was given his own kiln in 1892, and also worked independently in his nearby Villa Kaolin, which he acquired in 1898 and equipped with a wood-fired kiln. His private studio almost certainly served his incessant need to experiment with chemical formulae, leading to such innovative results as his microcrystalline glazes. He also took pains to publish his experimental work, as in his book Grand Feu Ceramics. A practical treatise on the making of fine porcelain and grès (1905), which helped to establish him as a scholar and one of the first studio potters. He was eventually dismissed by the company in 1905 for failing to comply with managerial directives. His reputation was such that in 1909, after four years of autonomous work in the town of Sèvres, he was offered the position of director of the School of Ceramic Art at the People’s University at University City in Missouri, following the founding of the American Women’s League in 1907. There, he influenced the work of such notable ceramists as Adelaide Alsop Robineau, editor of Keramic Studio, and the Englishmen Frederick and Agnes Rhead and Thomas Parker. In 1911, Doat took up a new position as director of the University City Porcelain Works, at a time when the People’s University was under financial strain. In 1914, he returned to Sèvres, where he continued to produce ceramics of great artistic and technical maturity in his atelier up until his death in 1938.
The resumés of Dalpayrat and Doat suffice to show why they were both awarded the highest decoration by the French Republic, the Légion d'Honneur, and why the works of both continue to grace art collections across the globe, never failing to attract attention.
— Paul Arthur, author of French Art Nouveau Ceramics: An Illustrated Dictionary, Paris, 2015, Professor in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Salento, Italy and President of the Italian Society of Medieval Archaeologists
– Paul Arthur
Dalpayrat and Doat, two very different French artists, were united by their technical prowess and their ability to inspire the ceramic aesthetics of the Belle Epoque. Both made valuable and unique, but very different, contributions to the development of art pottery in the twentieth century. The immensely prolific Dalpayrat perfected a striking oxblood red (sang-de-bœuf) copper glaze, often enlivened to great effect with splashes and streaks of green and blue.
Doat, on the other hand, achieved the most remarkable combination of neoclassical idioms, in his meticulous pâte-sur-pâte cameo ornamentation, applied to his interpretations of the Japonist ceramics that had become fashionable in late nineteenth-century Europe. Today, their attractive works are amongst the most prized by collectors and museums seeking the roots of modern ceramic art. Let us take a look at these two remarkable craftsmen a bit more closely.
Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat was born in 1844 in the city of Limoges in central France, which had become a leading centre of porcelain production since the discovery of kaolin deposits in 1765. After studying in Limoges, he worked for various manufacturers in Bordeaux, Valentine and Toulouse before arriving in Monte Carlo in 1884 to help run the decorative workshop of the Poterie de Monaco at the request of Marie Blanc, wife of the famous entrepreneur François Blanc, founder of the Casinò. Dalpayrat was clearly already a consummate artist, and after brief stints in Menton and Limoges, finally set up his own atelier in the town of Bourg-la-Reine, on the outskirts of Paris.
It is no coincidence that this was in 1889, the year of the Universal Exhibition in Paris, and that the town was already a flourishing centre for the production of ceramics by such successful practitioners as François Laurin and Ernest Chaplet, the latter being credited with the discovery of a formula for sang-de-bœuf glazed ceramics.
It was there that Dalpayrat perfected his own vivid glazes which, together with the new flambé effect, also inspired by Japanese techniques, gave his products a striking iridescent and flame-like appearance, whether they were made of reddish-brown stoneware or of white porcelain. Already praised at the Salon of 1892, and with the help of sculptors such as Alphonse Voisin-Delacroix and Jean Coulon, his works were produced in all shapes and sizes and, by the last decade of the nineteenth century, were prized throughout the Western world. Sadly, he retired to Limoges in 1906 to turn his hand to painting. He passed away four years later, but not without committing his firm to his sons, particularly Adolphe, who carried on the Dalpayrat tradition into the 1920s.
Taxile Maximin Doat was born in Albi in 1851, but began his training first at the École Adrien Dubouché in Limoges, and later at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied sculpting. Unlike the peripatetic Dalpayrat, he worked continuously for the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres near Paris from 1877 to 1905, and had already been singled out at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1889. He skillfully combined elaborate and time-consuming pâte-sur-pâte porcelain medallions with Japonist-style vases with drip and flambé glazes.
Regarded as a brilliant innovator, he was given his own kiln in 1892, and also worked independently in his nearby Villa Kaolin, which he acquired in 1898 and equipped with a wood-fired kiln. His private studio almost certainly served his incessant need to experiment with chemical formulae, leading to such innovative results as his microcrystalline glazes. He also took pains to publish his experimental work, as in his book Grand Feu Ceramics. A practical treatise on the making of fine porcelain and grès (1905), which helped to establish him as a scholar and one of the first studio potters. He was eventually dismissed by the company in 1905 for failing to comply with managerial directives. His reputation was such that in 1909, after four years of autonomous work in the town of Sèvres, he was offered the position of director of the School of Ceramic Art at the People’s University at University City in Missouri, following the founding of the American Women’s League in 1907. There, he influenced the work of such notable ceramists as Adelaide Alsop Robineau, editor of Keramic Studio, and the Englishmen Frederick and Agnes Rhead and Thomas Parker. In 1911, Doat took up a new position as director of the University City Porcelain Works, at a time when the People’s University was under financial strain. In 1914, he returned to Sèvres, where he continued to produce ceramics of great artistic and technical maturity in his atelier up until his death in 1938.
The resumés of Dalpayrat and Doat suffice to show why they were both awarded the highest decoration by the French Republic, the Légion d'Honneur, and why the works of both continue to grace art collections across the globe, never failing to attract attention.
— Paul Arthur, author of French Art Nouveau Ceramics: An Illustrated Dictionary, Paris, 2015, Professor in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Salento, Italy and President of the Italian Society of Medieval Archaeologists