Dalpayrat faience de Bourg la freine marque à la grenade éclatée

Bourg La Reine faience with the Dalpeyrat exploding grenade mark


The Bourg-la-Reine earthenware by Antoine Dalpayrat is renowned for its exceptional aesthetics and high-quality craftsmanship. Antoine Dalpayrat was a famous French ceramist, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is particularly celebrated for his enameled earthenware creations, which are appreciated for their artistic beauty and technical expertise.

Dalpayrat's Bourg-la-Reine earthenware pieces are distinguished by their rich and vibrant color palette. He was known for his glazes in shades of red, maroon, and brown, often combined with touches of gold or copper. These warm and shimmering colors give the pieces a distinct and luxurious appearance.

The style of motifs and decorations varied, but Dalpayrat was often inspired by nature and organic forms. Floral patterns, stylized leaf motifs, and abstract designs are frequently found, capturing the essence of Art Nouveau, an artistic movement very popular at the time.

Mark with the burst pomegranate

His biography:

Pierre Adrian Dalpayrat (1844-1910). He began studying drawing then porcelain painting before embarking on a real tour of France: Bordeaux in the workshop of the faience maker Jules Vieillard, Limoges at Léon Sazerat's, at Ashwin's workshops in Valentine and at Fouquet's in Toulouse.
Dalpayrat then settled in Menton around 1878, managed the decoration workshop of François Blanc's factory in Monaco and discovered stoneware, which was used not far away (in Vallauris) with increasing success.

Forced to leave the South after the earthquake of February 23, 1887, Dalpayrat returned to Sazerat's in Limoges, long enough to raise enough money to open a new workshop in Bourg-la-Reine, a town in the Paris region where he permanently settled in 1889. There, the 45-year-old porcelain painter devoted himself definitively to the production of artistic stoneware, a material supported by the Japanism trend and the success of ceramists Ernest Chaplet and Auguste Delaherche at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris.
Dalpayrat perfected his technique of oxblood-red glazing, based on copper oxides. Three years after Verlaine affirmed "I see life in red," it was in 1892 that the ceramist finalized this shade that would make his reputation, so unique that it would sometimes be called "Dalpayrat Red." Achieved by firing at controlled temperature and duration, this distinctive red sometimes turns green, violet, amber, or lead gray, sometimes all at once on the same piece.

Upon Voisin-Delacroix's death in 1893, Dalpayrat briefly collaborated with Swedish sculptor Agnès de Frumerie before partnering with Adèle Lesbros. The ceramist's style then returned to more classic vases, albeit marked by Japonism and its plant and animal forms. He participated in the Chicago World's Fair the same year, and the following year, in 1894, began a collaboration with sculptor Jean Coulon. Although Dalpayrat enjoyed great success with his flamed stoneware stamped "with the burst pomegranate" which he sold in renowned locations, his business remained financially fragile. The ceramist therefore enlisted the collaboration of goldsmiths Ernest Cardeilhac and Keller to create pieces mounted in gilded bronze in the fashion of the time.

In 1900, Dalpayrat was awarded a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition and appointed Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.
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