TEXT: History of Chantilly porcelain

Produced in Chantilly from the 1730s onwards, soft-paste porcelain, along with lace, was the most important craft activity in the Chantilly region during the 18th and 19th centuries. It is one of the symbols of the influence of the Princes of Condé on the economic development of the town.

Louis-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, owner of the Chantilly estate, was, at the beginning of the 18th century, a very wealthy man and a discerning art lover. A great collector of Far Eastern art, he was fascinated by the mystery surrounding the manufacture of porcelain, which at the time still surrounded it, and brought a porcelain maker from the Saint-Cloud factory named Cicaire Cirou to Chantilly. Cirou developed a recipe for soft-paste porcelain and, in 1735, obtained the "royal privilege" granting him the right to produce porcelain in Chantilly.

Following the French Revolution, during the sale of the property of the Princes of Condé, it was an Englishman, Christopher Potter, who bought the factory to produce fine earthenware until 1800. The manufacture of porcelain then continued in a very irregular way until 1870 before disappearing completely at the end of the 19th century.

The first style adopted in Chantilly reflected the dominant taste in Europe at the time: a taste for chinoiserie. Chantilly therefore produced porcelain in the Japanese style. known as "Kakiemon", composed of bamboo, pagodas, dragons, phoenixes, butterflies...

Kakiemon, so named after the Arita ceramist, Sakaida Kakiemon (1596-1666), who originated the first glazed Japanese porcelains.

Kakiemon is the first painted decoration created at the Chantilly Manufactory between 1735 and 1740. It was the Collection of Chinese Drawings by Monsieur Fresse, decorator and ornamentalist to the Prince of Condé, that served as a model and source of inspiration for the Manufactory's first painters. The theme of the Kakiemon decoration is largely inspired by China and Japan, using manganese for the outlines and a very simple palette of four colors (iron red, blue, yellow, and green) for the shading.