Vincennes Ware

Vincennes ware, pottery made at Vincennes, near Paris, from c. 1738, when the factory was probably founded by Robert and Gilles Dubois, until 1756 (three years after it had become the royal manufactory), when the concern moved to Sèvres, near Versailles. After 1756 pottery continued to be made at Vincennes, under Pierre-Antoine Hannong; both tin-glazed earthenware (officially) and soft-paste porcelain (clandestinely, in defiance of a Sèvres monopoly) were made until royal intervention forced Hannong’s dismissal in 1770. The factory continued until c. 1788. Histories of the royal porcelain manufactory of France usually discuss products before 1756 under the name Vincennes and those after 1756 under the name Sèvres, though when it comes to questions of patronage and style, pottery authorities refer freely to the Vincennes–Sèvres administration.

Some of the innovations for which Sèvres became famous actually began during the Vincennes period. Soft paste (a porcellaneous material but not true porcelain) was made from 1745 by François Gravant and a company formed with a monopoly of the production of “porcelain in the style of the Saxon.” Typical of Vincennes were biscuit figures (white mat, unglazed figures in soft paste) introduced c. 1751–53 by J.-J. Bachelier, and flowers (c. 1748), also modelled in soft paste, on wire stems or applied to vases.