Collecting Limoges

From Chinese kaolin to the Limoges porcelain factories

The story of Limoges porcelain starts in China, where the ground yielded kaolin, the pure white clay that is the essential ingredient of fine hard paste porcelain. More than 1,000 years ago Chinese and Japanese potters had learned to fix decoration to glazed porcelain by firing it at intense temperatures. During the Age of Enlightenment, Dutch traders carried Chinese porcelain to Europe, where buyers were eager to trade their earthenware for a delicate, hand-decorated ware that looked translucent when held to the light.

Demand grew so strong that European makers set out to copy it. In Germany in 1708, Johann Friedrich Bottger, a chemist working under the King of Saxony, found the formula for hard paste porcelain. Potters in England, Italy and France had to settle for bone china or soft paste. The German formula stayed a guarded secret for about 60 years, until workers left the factory and took the process with them.

France’s first porcelain factory began production in 1771 in the Limousin region, about 250 miles southwest of Paris. By the 19th century the region had roughly 32 porcelain factories and 62 decorating studios. By the 1920s there were more than 48 factories and over 400 known factory marks, among them Tressemann and Vogt (T&V), William Guerin (W.G. & Co.), Jean Pouyat (J.P.L.) and Haviland.

How Limoges china was made and decorated

Limoges became the generic name for everything produced in the region’s factories, and each factory had its own back stamp or underglaze mark. The recipe did not change from one maker to the next: feldspar, kaolin and quartz. Every piece went through the same firing of about 900 degrees for 16 hours, then glazing, then a second firing at roughly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for eight more hours.

Two things make one piece of Limoges different from another: the blank, meaning the shape of the porcelain, and the way it was decorated. Once the white ware was ready, it could go to the factory’s own decorating studio, to another studio in the region, to a professional decorating firm in the United States, or to department stores and china painting schools, where amateur painters bought blanks to paint at home.

Among the most wanted pieces are those decorated in a French factory and signed by a factory artist. Such a piece carries an underglaze factory mark, an overglaze decorating studio mark and the artist’s signature in plain view. Each factory artist had a specialty and a recognizable hand. A piece painted by the artist Luc, for example, is usually far less detailed than one painted by Dubois.

Far more common is decalcomania, a transfer or decal process in which an engraved transfer was placed under the glaze and fired. Some transfer pieces were then touched up by a factory artist who painted in parts of the design. Many were finished with hand-painted gold on the rims, handles and feet, a treatment correctly called mixtion. Because transfer and mixtion decoration held up well, they were used mainly on dinnerware: platters, serving pieces, compotes and the other pieces of a formal dinner.

Haviland and Limoges dinnerware in America

Most American collectors connect the name Limoges with Haviland and the dinner services that so many families inherited. Theodore Haviland set strict decorating standards, so most Haviland sets were also decorated in one of the firm’s own studios. A Haviland piece shows an underglaze factory mark and an overglaze factory decorating mark.

Approximately 18,000 barrels of Limoges porcelain were shipped to the United States from the late 19th century well into the 20th. With so many sets in circulation, and few households still hosting sit-down dinners for eight or twelve, the price of most Limoges dinnerware stood at an all-time low in 2006. The exception was a complete set of cobalt blue dinnerware, which could run well into the thousands of dollars.

American decorating studios and their artists

From the late 19th century to the early 1930s, thousands of undecorated Limoges blanks came into the United States. Professional studios painted many of them. Chicago alone had 49 known decorating studios in 1912 and 102 by 1916, and there were others in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Detroit.

Chicago names include the Edward Donath Studio, Keates Art Studio, LeRoy Art Studio, Luken Art Studio, Osborne Art Studio, Pickard Studios, Pitkin & Brooks, Stouffer Company, Whites Art Company and Yeschek. Other firms decorating imported European blanks included the American Hand Painted China Company, Julius H. Brauer Studio, Kay Bee China Works, Dominick Campana Studio, A. Heidrich Studios, Humboldt Art Studio, International Art Studios, Parsche Studios, Seidel Studio and The Pairpoint Studio. Most of them put an overglaze decorating mark on the base.

Many artists in these American studios had trained in European porcelain factories, and it was common for them to move between several studios over a career. Well-known names include Burton, Challinor, Donath, Jelinek, Keates, Leon, Roy, Schoenig, Vokral and Yeschek.

Victorian china painters and unsigned hand painted Limoges

Limoges production peaked during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837 to 1901), when ornament and embellishment were the fashion. Victorians loved the rose, and Limoges blanks gave them a way to combine that love with china painting. By the mid-19th century china painting was one of America’s most popular pastimes, and by the early 20th century more than 25,000 Americans were doing it.

Most of these painters were women. They formed a large cottage industry of skilled artists who, because of the social customs of the day, were never allowed professional status. They bought blanks at fine department stores and studios and chose them by shape rather than factory. A woman assembling a dresser set might buy each piece from a different maker, which is why the pieces of one hand-painted dresser set often carry different factory marks.

Amateur painters account for most of the hand painted Limoges on the American market. These pieces have the underglaze factory mark on the bottom, and sometimes the painter’s signature, initials or a date. Many were never signed. A missing amateur signature does not lower the value, and a well-painted amateur piece is sometimes more desirable than a factory-decorated one.

Spotting reproduction Limoges marks and judging value

Since the early 1990s hundreds of reproductions have reached the market, sold as Limoges or Limoges China. The mark most often copied is T&V Limoges France, along with marks reading Limoges China, ROC and ROC LIMOGES CHINA. ROC stands for Republic of China. Similar warning signs on other wares are covered in tell-tale signs on reproduction porcelain.

For genuine pieces, price and desirability depend on the factory, the marks, age, condition, how unusual the blank is, size, whether a set is complete, the quality of the painting and the signature. An amateur signature does not change the value, but the signature of a listed French factory artist can lift a piece into investment quality. Pieces from the same era of European porcelain, such as Royal Bayreuth and the hard paste Paris porcelain boxes painted on Limoges white ware, reward the same close look at marks.

In 2006 a large hand painted jardiniere on its base, made around 1890 to 1907, was priced at $2,500. A rare blue soup tureen with dolphin finial and Victorian handles, sold with 12 matching bowls and marked W.G. & Co. France, around 1891 to 1900, carried a price of $3,600. Limoges made no tiles, though it did make square plaques; a 10 by 12 inch piece from the T&V factory, painted by an amateur around 1907, was valued at $1,200.

Because Limoges is a fine hard paste porcelain that does not crackle or craze, a well-kept piece looks much as it did when it left France more than a century ago. Porcelain of the same Victorian taste turns up in dressing table pieces such as hair receivers, many of them painted on European blanks.