Provencal pottery is known for its bright vibrant colours hand crafted by highly skilled artisans. Most ceramic pieces are made using local clay from Entraigue sur Sorgue, a small village near Avignon. The pottery is made using old techniques from the 17th century. One of the most famous styles is Faïence from Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. The characteristic of Provencal pottery are the warm rich intense colours of decoration which are ochre’s, sunflower yellows, russets, silver-greens, cerulean blues, deep roses, alizarin reds all of which can be found looking at the Provencal landscape.
It is said Provencal pottery is an expression of a way of life, because they are all useful and beautifully decorative. Like all pottery there are a number of firings before the finished product is complete. Once a piece has been created it has to dry very slowly. Drying needs to be done slowly so the item doesn’t crack. Then it gets fired in a kiln which turns the clay to ceramic, this is known as ‘biscuit ware’.
Once this process is complete its time for the decoration. In the past this process could take weeks and be very expensive because each colour would have had a separate firing temperature. You would have had to put the highest firing colour on first which would have normally been cobalt blue, then fire it, and then work your way down to the lowest firing colours which were normally red. So if your piece had 6 colours, it would have meant that the piece would have had a biscuit firing then 6 more firings for each colour.
Luckily in these modern times that is not the case. You can now fire all of the colours in one firing making the overall piece much cheaper to sell meaning more of us normal folk can afford beautiful British ceramics which used to be far too expensive. Also now we have electric kilns which mean we can control the temperature more easily and making the firing process faster than the old bottle kilns which took a ton of coal to fire up and about 3 days from start to finish.
Provencal pottery, like any other pottery which is hand crafted and hand painting will look wonderful in any kitchen, not jut a French Country feel kitchen. Most British ceramics these days are dishwasher proof which means they will last for years to come.
You don’t have to travel to Provence to find good pottery as there are many online boutique offering Provencal pottery and many other types of French gifts. So get surfing and find that really special ceramic piece made in the beautiful area of Provence France.
https://ezinearticles.com/?Provencal-Pottery&id=3423466 by Carolyn Clayton