Tournai Porcelain

Tournai porcelain, porcelain made from about the mid-18th to the mid-19th century at a factory in Tournai, Belg. Several styles prevailed: figures in fanciful landscapes, cupids, and other decorative motifs were outlined in plain crimson on white, especially by the painter Henri-Joseph Duvivier (during 1763–71); landscapes with ruins, war scenes, and the like were painted also in green, blue, brown, and reddish brown. In 1787 a service with birds, based on Georges-Louis-Leclerc Buffon’s Natural History of Birds (1771), was painted by Jean-Ghislain-Joseph Mayer. The service consists of panels with naturalistically coloured birds that alternate on the rim of the plates with panels of dark blue, diapered with gold. The blue was similar to the bleu de roi (“royal blue”) of Sèvres. Flowers and insects were also naturalistically rendered on Tournai ware. In the latter part of the 18th century, plates were produced with plain decoration in blue, ranging from royal to blue black, sometimes with gilt; the key pattern—festoons—and other formal patterns were used. Some examples were decorated in plain gold on a white background.

Some Tournai plates of differing styles have, as a common characteristic, fine fluting or reeding of the rim, sometimes dense, sometimes wide apart, but nearly always swirled rather than straight, which were inspired by the moldings of some Meissen ozier pattern borders. Figures in white-glazed (and occasionally coloured) porcelain were made, notably by Nicolas Lecreux. They are usually of rustic groups and seem to be composed in a sort of spiral, the effect of which is that the view of them is perfect from every angle. Their bases have detailed and delicate modelling of such motifs as flowers, berries, and latticework.