Rago Auctions

Founded in 1864, Haviland & Co. consistently pushed boundaries in their industry under the leadership of Charles Haviland (1839-1921) and initiated a revolution in porcelain decoration in the 1870s thanks to artistic director Félix Bracquemond’s use of chromolithography on ceramics. Bracquemond also initiated collaborations with various artists including the brothers Edouard-Alexandre and Albert-Louis Dammouse, Felix Lafond, and Edouard Lindeneher, a wise decision that would bear even more impressive artistic fruit the following decade. In 1874, Haviland purchased the secrets to renowned ceramist Ernest Chaplet’s recently developed barbotine technique and, the following year, hired Chaplet to further develop the ware at the company’s experimental studio in Auteuil.

Chaplet’s reputation at Haviland was such that, when high production costs forced the company to close the Auteuil studio in 1881, he convinced the firm to open another atelier on the Rue Blomet, Vaugirard in Paris. For the next several years, Chaplet oversaw the creation of a wide variety of wares. He was an adherent to Arts and Crafts philosophies and believed strongly in fostering a creative atmosphere in which a single artisan is responsible for both the design and execution of an object. Similar to Bracquemond before him, Chaplet collaborated with about 20 artists, chief among them the Dammouse brothers and Ringel d'Illzach, with whom he produced stoneware and experimental porcelain. The resulting vases and sculptures ranged from red-brown stoneware with incised Japonesque decoration, colored slips, enamels, and gilding, to oxblood-glazed porcelain vases and figurines.

Beyond his leadership and collaborative efforts, it was at the Vaugirard studio that Chaplet—with chemist Lebrun de Rabot—finally succeeded in reproducing the elusive sang-de-boeuf (oxblood) glaze he had seen on medieval Chinese ceramics. In 1886, economic difficulties forced Haviland to cease production at all locations except his Limoges factory. Chaplet acquired the Rue Blomet studio, which he then ceded in 1897 to fellow ceramist extraordinaire, Auguste Delaherche. Chaplet went on to make his own, indelible mark on the industry, but his tenure at Haviland’s experimental ateliers remain some of the most influential and stylistically diverse in the history of Western ceramics.

The re-opening of Japanese ports to foreign trade in 1854, after nearly 250 years of embargo, ushered in an era of utter fascination with, and inspiration from, every aspect of the visual culture from that distant, unfamiliar island country. Japanese woodblock prints, ceramics, textiles, screens, and other objets d’art began appearing in European markets in the 1860s, soon drawing much attention in major exhibitions, markets, fairs, and salons. Japanese prints and objects increasingly provided Western artists images of a foreign, exotic land, as well as a new formal vocabulary, sense of spatial relationships, color palette, and appreciation for nature. French art critic Philippe Burty coined a new term for this Japanese-inspired aesthetic: Japonisme.

The earliest efforts in Japonisme consisted of copied motifs from Japanese prints, as can be seen in Félix Bracquemond’s (1833-1914) Service Rousseau tableware. Exhibited at the 1867 Paris Exposition Universelle to critical acclaim, this work is credited with the earliest use of Japanese print images in French decorative arts. His asymmetrical placement of the appropriated images on the plates also exhibits an understanding of the Japanese spatial concepts, and a shift away from practiced French symmetrical arrangements.

Other French decorative artists soon followed in adopting Japanese designs and formal principles, and what began as a superficial borrowing of motifs evolved into a true assimilation and adaptation of Japanese aesthetic concepts. Besides the work of Bracquemond, Japonisme in ceramics was skillfully embraced by Albert Dammouse (1848-1926), Ernest Chaplet (1835-1909), Théodore Deck (1823-1891), Edmond Lachenal (1855-1948), and Émile Decoeur (1876-1953), among many others in the Paris circle and beyond. Each of these ceramicists developed independent, interpretive, japoniste styles, emulating the spirit of their models and in the process, achieving a new, freer conception of painted decoration, vase shapes, stoneware glazes, and other ceramic techniques.

Japonisme’s popularity began to fade at the dawning of the 20th century as it was supplanted by the sinuous lines and whiplash tendrils of Art Nouveau. However, decorative and fine arts are nothing if not a continuum, and Japonisme’s lasting influence was felt in the genesis of concurrent and following art movements including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Art Nouveau, and beyond.