Keraluc

A retrospection of the works of Keraluc produced from 1946 - 1965 is being held at Armel Galerie in Paimpol, France, through the end of February.  The works of approximately 6 Keraluc artists will be on display and are available for purchase. Victor Lucas, the founder of Keraluc, worked at Henriot and HB before founding this studio. The Modern works produced at Keraluc, in Quimper, were unique forms created without poncifs. The decor and original forms came from the ideas of each artist.   For more information visit the website, here.

Ardingly Antiques Fair, Sussex.......by Louise R

Towards the end of July we spent an exhausting but fun day out at one of Southern England's largest antique fairs held in Ardingly, Sussex.
It is held at the County Showground, both indoors and out. Thousands of stalls and traders from all over Europe as well as local dealers and buyers.
I really recommend this fair, the next ones are on the 7th September and 26th October.
Fortunately it was a lovely day, we started at 10 and it took us about five hours to cover the entire site, with vital stops for food and drink and a chance to sit down for a minute!
The first thing I saw was an old Malicorne platter, It was inexpensive, but I couldn't decide, I wasn't quite sure about it. As I hovered, another buyer grabbed it and bought it! Ah well!
We then came across a large Dutch gentleman with a huge amount of Quimper spread out on blankets on the ground.
He said he'd bought up an entire collection and we got quite excited for a moment, but on further inspection a lot of it was damaged or just odds and ends.

Still, I got to practise my rather rusty Dutch on him and I did buy two things, a completely silly,very pink, early Keraluc candlestick which I love, and a nice blue HB Modern Movement shrimp dish.

Later on we found two plates (No, not more plates!).
An HB croisille with Breton and an earlyish HB with a rather nice swan on it.

These were so cheap it seemed silly not to buy them. Ah, I can hear you all sighing, we've all been there!

Bryan bought some old toys (second childhood!), as we are going to trade at the next Alexandra Palace, London, fair in September and we need lots of assorted treasures to entice the buyers.
I might put some Quimper on the stall if I can bear to part with it! Its a local fair for us, so easy to get to, do drop in if you're in London.
We will head for France in October when all the schools are back.
We haven't been for over a year due to Bryan's health so, I can't wait to see Bretagne again. I've been keeping up my French classes, its so easy to lose a language if you don't hear it spoken.
I wish I could find someone to do ceramic restoration in this country, Quimper is quite specialist and here they just seem to do porcelain repairs.
Sending it to France is not easy and risks damage, if anyone knows someone do let me know.

Keraluc flasks..........by Gay S.

Cheers !
One advantage of collecting Quimper is that there seems to be something for everyone - there are several manufacturers, hundreds of different styles and representations of several era's.
As an example contrast these jolly, mainly plaid flasks, perhaps best described as 'retro' with the Porquier Beau botanicals recently shown on this blog.

These flasks are made by the Keraluc faiencerie and were usually made to hold various Alcoholic drinks....Cognac and Whisky we are familiar with. Guignolet d'Anjou is a dark cherry liqueur, served without ice as an Aperitif. It's also an ingredient of guignolo a cocktail where the cherry liqueur is added to champagne.

Vieille Prune is a plum brandy aged in oak caskets that has a smooth taste typically its produced in Souillac.
Liqueur de Vieux Presbytere could have been made for a restaurant or hotel of that name, but that is just a guess !
A few flasks are not for alchohol: perhaps Sante Sobriete was for a non alcholic drink as health and sobriety could be an odd thing to find on a bottle of spirits !

Most of the flasks I have seen are plaid but there are a few that are decorated in more of a cartoon style - so far I haven't been able to add any of these to my collection but I'm keeping my eyes open !

Bargain Time .......by Gay S

At first glance it may seem that these pieces have nothing in common, apart from all being of Quimper manufacture, but they all come under the heading of bargains and show that sometimes if you keep your eyes open you can find things at very reasonable prices

For 3 or More Tuesday hosted by Tam @The Gypsy's Corner and Vintage Thingie Thursday a great meme found over at The Colorado Lady Suzanne's place,

I wanted to show you some of my collection of vintage pieces.

Please do go and visit these great blogs to discover more interesting collections and vintage items.

I have had the little Keraluc figure, above, for several years. I found her at a flea market and bought her from a couple of stall holders I knew very well (and they knew I collected Quimper). They always had interesting but cheap items so they were a magnet for the dealers. This little lady was on the top shelf of their display – when I asked to see her the stall holder admired her but assured me she was Greek, he had been to Greece for a holiday and remembered ‘Ker’ is used in the Greek language. The price was just £1. The amusing thing was that no matter what I said the dealer maintained his stance – he just never believed that Keraluc has anything to do with Quimper…

The shell dish I found this year: there is an antique centre about a mile away which is situated in the premises of an old abattoir, if you look up you can see it still has all the rails and hooks. It’s not very upscale but one dealer does like to sell French items and on this particular day we had found an old French glass kitchen measure (my husband has a small collection of old glass measures). I went to the office to pay and my husband spotted the little dish, it was filthy and covered in dust but it was only £5 and I just couldn’t leave it there, unloved. I just had to rescue it!
The décor is Ivoire Corbeille (we will be featuring this décor in the Clubs Spring/Summer Journal so please contribute photo's if you have any) and I suspect the lady is from Normandy.


The third piece we found recently in the local Oxfam (charity) shop, at just 99p we could hardly pass it by, could we? And it has been a useful serving piece over Christmas.



The fourth piece was more of a struggle to obtain. Again it’s a flea market purchase.

One dealer (who I knew from his other auction house job) had a specific routine – he stood in the middle of a square of tables and as he unpacked his boxes we used to grab what we were interested in, then when he had finished he would come to each of us and price our pile of items and we’d have a little haggle – when he got to know you he would often try to make sure you got first chance of anything in your area of interest – this being a blue plate it was ‘given’ to the lady who specialised in blue plates. Sometimes things would be rejected as too dear or damaged, but the ‘blue plate lady’ wanted this piece so she paid £5. About a month later I offered her 100% profit and the plate was mine……a good price for an Yvain piece!