A Plate Designed by Félix Bracquemond?
Le Jardinier (our title) remains something of a mystery. Following a query raised on Instagram, however, some answers are emerging.
The form of the faience plate, 23 cm in diameter and with a blue ‘feathered’ border (emulating eighteenth-century faience), can be compared to the famous Service Rousseau, examples from which are to be found in many museum collections, across the world. The mark on the back for marchand-éditeur Eugène Rousseau (1827-90) and the manufacturer Creil-Montereau is specific to the period 1866-75, and is also found on the first edition of the Service Rousseau.
Félix Bracquemond (1833-1914) designed the Service Rousseau and is also likely responsible for our plate too. Le Jardinier is perhaps from (or relates to) the proposed Second Service Rousseau, about which Rousseau wrote to Bracquemond on 22 June 1869: ‘Je vous dis rien pour les assiettes je vous laisse à votre première impression.’ In the event, production of this service was interrupted in 1870 by the Franco-Prussian War. This, it has been observed, may be why examples from this service are so rare (See Félix Bracquemond et les arts décoratifs: Du Japonisme à l’Art nouveau, Réunion des musées nationaux, 2015, p. 73).
The wispy drawing of the figure can be compared, for example, to La Pluie, a hand-coloured etching in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (22.69.24; see Félix Bracquemond, fig. 25). Claire Cass has drawn our attention to the Fondation Neumann catalogue Felix Bracquemond 1833: Graveur et céramiste (2003), where the design for La Pluie is said to be for the ‘Second Service Rousseau’ (p. 96, fig. 67). A plate with a moulded but not painted border, decorated with the same figure (in an urban landscape, now likely confirmed as from the Service Parisien, manufactured by Havilland et Cie and first exhibited in 1876), is in the collection of the musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (inv. 687; see Félix Bracquemond, fig.23/2). A further thirteen more Service Parisien plates, donated by Larry Simms, are in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; see Martin Levy, ‘Firing the Imagination: Japanese Influence on French Ceramics, 1860-1910’, DAS Newletter, 133 (Spring 2025), p. 5.
The ultimate source for La Pluie may be a woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), part of the Hokusai gafu (vol. 1, 1849). A Bracquemond vase manufactured by Havilland, dated to around 1875, with printed and painted decoration based on this print, is part of the Simms Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (thanks to Colin Fanning for this information).
Julia Siemon has drawn our attention to three plates that clearly belong to the same series as the one shown here. Two are in the collection of the Petit Palais, Paris: [here] and [here]. A third (Le Chasseur) is in the collection of the musée Adrien Dubouché, Limoges (ADL4903).
Further adding to the uncertainty, each of these plates has in common what appears to be a signature (see here to the right of the figure’s head).
This note, a work in progress, was updated 27 February 2025; further thoughts would be welcomed…