Barnyard Bash ~ French Style by Sarah

Paper Maché Figures from French Artist, Aude Goalet

Welcome to the French countryside for the First Barnyard Bash hosted by Happier Than a Pig in Mud.

~ Barnyard Bash French Style ~

8.5" Unmarked Manor House Plate

It's early morning at le mas, a typical french farm house.

8.75" Unmarked Soleil Plate

Le soleil rises over the hillside and . . .

11.5" HB Quimper Charger

The sound of Le coq is heard as he announces a beautiful new day at le ferme.

HB-Henriot Hen on Nest

Séance de poule is on her nest ready to provide fresh eggs for the day.

7.75" Unmarked Deep Dish Plate

One can hear the swishing sound of birds as they fly above the nearby pond, the elegant cygne noir gracefully glides across the still water.

Pair of Figurals Marked Rouen Decor Fait Main

Young Juliet and Jean Pierre are up early for their morning chores before they head off to school.

12" Malicorne Charger, Pre-Lawsuit Mark of Reversed P & B

Monsieur looks across his land with great pride as another day dawns.

Pig Bank Marked HB Quimper

Le porc can be heard snorting about the barnyard.

8.25" Plate Marked HB Quimper

While the spat of deux coqs echos through the barnyard.

Horse Figural Marked Rouen Decor Fait Main

Frisky chevaux gallop across the pasture in the morning dew.

Unmarked Desvres 3-Sided Tea Caddy

All is right in the world on this fine day.

Oil and Vinegar Server, First Mark Porquier-Beau

There is much work to be done in the fields and vegetables to be gathered from the garden.

Goat Figural Double Salt Marked Gaetan Level

La chevre helps carry the load from the fields back to the barn.

10.75" Malicorne Charger Marked PBx

There is the walk into the village for the morning market to sell some chickens and fresh eggs.

Unmarked Desvres 3-Sided Tea Caddy

And many chores for the lady of the house before days end.

Reverse Side of Oil and Vinegar Server, First Mark Porquier-Beau

Fresh water for cooking and washing is gathered from the well as Monsieur heads to the house at day's end.

Cat Figural Marked AG

Of course every ferme has un chat.

HR Quimper Jardiniere

And at the end of the week there is much singing and dancing to celebrate with a

A Barnyard Bash ~ French Style

9.5" Malicorne Plate Marked PBx

So grab a partner and dance yourself right over to Happier Than a Pig in Mud, our hostess for the First Annual Barnyard Bash. Also you are invited to join me at Hyacinths for the Soul for a Barnyard Bash ~ English Style. Hope to see you there!

Also linking this post to Laurie's A Few of My Farorite Things Saturday @ Bargain Hunting and Chatting with Laurie. Click here to see others sharing favorite things this Saturday.

From the Land of Ty Breiz ... judy

Brittany is made up of four départements (more than a county, less than a state), and where three of them come together (Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes d'Armor), there is a little town called Gourin. With a population of around 4300, it could easily be lost in the wilds of central Brittany ... but it is not! Gourin is famous, even infamous, for its ties to North America. There was a major migration from Gourin to North America at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century and again in the 1950s, after the Canadian consul paid a visit to Gourin. There is even a replica of the Statue of Liberty in the center of Gourin!

In 1957, Ets Cozic was founded in Gourin. It still exists today as an importer and wholesale distributor of home decor items, particularly table and kitchen wares. But in the early years of its history, it manufactured in Gourin a pottery signed Ty Breiz (Ty Breiz is Breton for "the house of Brittany"). One day, the kilns were turned off permanently, but the production continued, subcontracted to Longchamp (whose doors unfortunately closed a year or so ago). As readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of post-WWII Breton pottery, and one of the Ty Breiz styles has been a favorite in our house for the last 15 years.

This Ty Breiz style comes in five colors: fluorescent yellow, poison green, caramel, burgundy, and black.

The origin of the central motif is clearly the triskell, the Celtic symbol whose meaning has a number of interpretations but is generally considered to represent water, earth, and fire.

The border has geometric elements that are also frequently found on Quimper pottery.

And it also has a border style that is a kind of feathering most often seen on pastries called napoleons in the US and millefeuilles in France!

I've never actually set a table with just Ty Breiz before, and it was something of a challenge, starting with a tablecloth color that would go with the five Ty Breiz colors. I ended up with this red and ocher woven cloth from the Basque country. (The four major regions in France for ceramics and linens are the Alsace, Provence, the Basque country, and Brittany. And it's amazing how well the styles from the different regions mix and match!) And now having set the table and tried to photograph it, I'm in awe of all you bloggers who take great pix of your table settings!

In addition to the colors, I really like the forms of many of the pieces. You've already seen an hors d'oeuvres server with its compartments. There is an interesting sauceboat shape in the above photo. I have two of the long, narrow oval platters; they are fish platters, but they are very useful for a bûche de Noël at Christmas. The leaf-shaped ravier is great for cocktail nibbles, as are the little round bowls (which are the pieces I use all the time – in my next life, I'm only having bowls and spoons in my house, and I'm only eating bowl food.)

There are other decors manufactured by Cozic that are also signed Ty Breiz.

       

This is a trivet that I bought because it is a matte pink (it's rare to see this shade of pink as a Breton pottery color) and it is decorated in black and white, also unusual. Nice faces, too!

You can still find a fair amount of Ty Breiz pottery in this area – not that I actually need any more, but I could use some green plates to balance out my color assortments ...

Inkwells ~ A Favorite Form by Sarah

I suppose many of us who collect French faience tend to favor certain forms or decors from time to time. Once a particular interest is sparked a collection within a collection begins to form. This group of Quimper ink wells was gathered together over many years. I've grouped them on a tray that moves about our home. Each of these date to around 1920 - 1930.

The heart shaped one is the first piece of vintage Quimper I acquired. It was a birthday gift from a group of friends given to me in the 1980s. This little heart was the piece that fueled my interest in antique and vintage pieces of French faience.

A souvenir from a California vacation one summer, this little faience charmer is new production from the 1980s. It is simply marked France Decor Main.

It opens to this sweet little flower shaped stopper covering the well.

More faience ink wells can be found sitting among books on shelves in a guest bedroom. These three were produced by Alcide Chaumeil and are known simply as CA faience because of the mark.

I first saw this square example in the collection of a fellow QCI member. A year or so later I was fortunate to find one for our collection.

It appealed to me because of the mechanics of this box. The ceramic lid pivots across to reveal the well for the ink. I suspect this is a rare form.

Another interesting form is this CA figural of a Breton fisherman pulling in his catch. The coiled rope is the lid to the inkwell.

A French market find, this rather large piece is unfortunately missing its lid. I found it laying in a box of assorted things at a weekend brocante. The price was too good to pass it by, so it too resides among the others, sans hat as Debbie @ Confessions of a Plate Addict says. You can read about her French ink well find here.

This little pair of bunnies were an eBay purchase. One holds the quills and the other the ink well. They are Desvres production.

A limited edition piece, this handsome ink stand was produced in 1990 by HB Henriot to commemorate the tricentennial of the faience of Quimper. The hand painted scene depicts the city of Quimper and the Odet River. The soft blue glaze and the fine detailed painting make this a remarkable piece.

A documentation card provided with this piece shows the other limited edition pieces that were produced for this special occasion.

If you are a collector of Quimper or other French faience, the bi-yearly QCI Journal is an excellent resource for those interested in specific forms or decors produced through the years. The colorful publication, free to members, includes the standing feature, Forms and Decors in addition to informative articles on various topics related to French faience. To join the Quimper Club International click here and begin receiving your copies of this publication. Back issues are also available for purchase. More information about both QCI and the Journal can be found on the sidebar.

So what collections within a collection can be found in your home?

These French faience ink wells are a few of my favorite things.

To see a list of others who are sharing some of their favorite things click here to join

A Few Of My Favorite Things Saturday

@ Bargain Hunting & Chatting with Laurie.

Also linking to the following parties:

Le Chateau des Fleurs French Obsession Party #6

Smiling Sally's Blue Monday

Gypsy's Corner's Three or More Tuesday

Judy's Day at the Flea Market

I love selling on the Internet, but once a year, I sell at a big flea market in Quimper, and it's a blast. It clears out things in one fell swoop and I get to spend all day talking to people. This particular flea market has been in existence for almost 20 years, and it is always the last Sunday in August. It is at the Quimper Parc des Expositions, Quimper's exhibit space which is frankly kind of a dump, and it generally has about 350 sellers, a good mix of professional and non-professional sellers. I sell a variety of things, mostly pottery. This year, I packed up seven plastic boxes, including pottery that I am selling for clients:

and pieces from our own collection (this batch is what did not sell in a recent mailing):

Of course, it's important to remember all the auxiliary bits, like scissors, stickers, pens, paper, kleenex, a thermos of hot tea, lunch, snacks (got to keep your strength up!), business cards, table covers (old sheets are good), and packing materials:

Last year, I exhibited by myself, and it was a very long day. I could not move from my booth, so I didn't get to buy (selling is less fun if you don't get to buy also!). This year, I exhibited with my neighbor, who had household stuff to sell, and the wife of Philippe Lalys, ceramics artist in Quimper. My neighbor drove, and so we loaded up her station wagon Saturday night. She already had a lot in it when she arrived at my house, and she didn't think we'd get it all in, but I'm pretty good at packing by now, and we managed!

Both my cohorts thought I was joking when I said we had to be there at 6 a.m. to set up. But you have to get there early if you want to unload easily AND if you want to be accessible to the really serious buyers who are running around the place with flashlights and cash, waiting for treasures to come out of boxes. So at 6:05 a.m., we were at the end of a rather long line of cars waiting to enter to set up, but it moved pretty quickly, and we were unpacking by 6:30 a.m. We were in a big hall that is basically a corrugated tin building with a macadam floor. We found our spot and started to unload.

Luckily, we had light - the other half of the hall was in the dark for unknown reasons.

By 8:00 a.m., when the doors officially opened, we were ready to go.  Me:

My  neighbor:

Mme Lalys:

At 8:15, we had a problem. A very late arriving seller could not find her space on our row, and finally someone from the organization team arrived with a tape measure. We had taken up half a table too much (that was half my fault, but it was also half the organizers' fault - the spaces were not clearly marked), and the domino effect down the row meant that this seller didn't have a space. So we scrambled to move our things (which is really a drag when you have to move a tablecloth with lots of breakables on it).

One of the great things about doing a flea market is you do unearth things tucked in the back of your storage. A year ago, when I did my inventory, I was sure that I had put aside a package of Quimper calendar tea towels. And then I could never find them again (that's what's wrong with cleaning things out - it's possible to get too organized!). Well, I found them when I was packing up last week. By now, a 2010 tea towel has four months of decorative value left, after which it becomes just another thing to dry glassware with, so these were on sale big time, 1 euro each.

I priced things to sell, and they did! It's great to wrap it up and move it out - I love seeing spaces appear on the table (if you have good sales, you get to spend all day rearranging your selling space)!! It was fun to talk to experienced collectors as well as some who are just getting into it. It's also fun to bargain ...

I sold some of almost everything, including five copies of my book. However, I did not sell a single necklace - I do have to say that I brought a selection of less expensive ones, which are perhaps also the less eye-catching ones of my collection. I should just save them for crafts markets ...

My last client of the day bought four of the eight cider cups that I had - I made her a great price in the hopes that she would take all eight, but just to see the four of them go made me happy (at 50 cents apiece, you can see that it doesn't take much to make me happy ... ).

There was traffic all day long. There was such a range of merchandise, from antiques and collectibles to used clothing and books - really, something for everybody. The serious buyers are there in the morning. There is a lull at the Sunday lunch hour. Mid to late afternoon is the time for the Sunday strollers. And at the end of the day, the last-minute bargain hunters come out - many sellers would rather sell something at a huge discount at the end than have to pack it up and take it home.

Around 5:30 p.m., we decided that it was getting quiet and that it was time to pack up and go. The seller across the aisle from us had put a sign up that he was giving away for free everything on his table. My neighbor took over her one remaining lampshade that she did NOT want to take home and added it to his merchandise. The organizers were walking around with big bags of bread leftover from making sandwiches, selling the baguettes for 50 cents a piece. Packing up was fast for all three of us - we all had good sales.

And the car took about two minutes to load - the only reason it was at all full was that someone delivered a platter to me, so there was an extra box to tote. And I had loaned a clothes rack to someone who was selling; it was returned to me right there, so we stuck it in the car.

And, as I said, it's no fun unless you get to buy ... I got the first shot at the Lalys pieces, and I bought these two rooster plates - design trials - as well as a Le Creuset casserole (for 5 euros - too good a deal to pass up, particularly as it is ovenproof), a teapot with Bigoudènes, a Keraluc dish in the manganese/color series (I love this blue!), an HB fan vase (needs restoring), and two miniature Henriot pitchers which also need a little touching up.

By 6:30 p.m., I was home. It was a fun day, it was a profitable day, I wouldn't want to do it for a living, but I can't wait until next year!