Faience News

Musee de la Faience

At the end of March the paper ‘The Telegram’ published an article simply titled: Musée de la Faience. Closed to the public for the third season.

From what I can glean (via a google translation!) the situation is this:

It now seems that although all parties recognise the value and uniqueness of the collection there is no progress in finding a solution.

In 2006 the Museum lost four of its five supporters and the decision was made to close the Museum for the season. In the current climate it has been impossible to find the required funds from the private sector and so, with the support of the Friends of the Museum, solutions involving the government have been sought, but still there is no concrete progress…..
The Museum houses the most important collection of faience in the world with over 3000 plates and also has workshops
If € 150,000 could be found the Museum could open virtually straight away
Chairman of the General Council, Pierre Maille, says ‘it is remembered that the reputation of the town of Quimper is not his soccer team but its earthenware’ however the city is not prepared to support a third Museum.

It has sometimes been suggested that the collection be housed at le Musée départemental however Bernard Verlingue feels that le Musée départemental is a general museum and only has two rooms dedicated to faience where as the Musee de la Faience has eight.

Sadly the decision not to open has meant that Philippe Thealet has been let go, for the past two seasons he had been engaged on helping with the Encyclopaedia and cataloguing the faience.
The workshops do however remain open to artists, Patrice Cudennec for example. Bernard Verlingue hopes this facility will continue to develop in future years.

We hope that a viable solution is found very soon!


From Malicorne

Some of you will know that the Malicorne faienceries Le Bourg Joly closed its doors in December 2008, but now the faienceries has reopened and once again the potters are working there.
This has come about due to investment by Denis Baudoin and Eric Le Calvez two dynamic executives who heard about the faienceries closure and decided to see if they could come up with a viable proposal. In March 2009 the good news that they could indeed re open was announced to former employees, on March 31st all the villagers were invited to a ceremonial relighting of the furnaces and at the same time the new owners explained their vision for the factory to those present. A demonstration of faience production followed.
Happily six potters who had worked together for many years have resumed their posts
We wish them every success

From Morlaix

A lively sale on April 20th produced some interesting results, a Porquier Beau botanical with a design of strawberries achieved a price of € 6100 while other botanicals figs, grapes poppies etc fetched between €3100 - €34000

Todays pictures are of my fish collection, there are items from Quimper, Malicorne and Desvres.