Pair Antique French Creil Faience 8 1/4" Cabinet Plates, Paris Grand Tour Scenes
Wonderful pair of antique French Creil faience 8 1/4" cabinet plates, decorative pieces with Romanesque borders and center Grand Tour scenes of Paris including "Vue Des Tuileries" and "Vue De L'Hotel Impedes Invalides"! Marks on the bases, including impressed mark of "Creil", are for Stone, Coquerel et LeGros, works can be seen at the Met and the V&A, or in their online galleries. Faience, or tin-glazed and enameled earthenware, first emerged in France during the sixteenth century, reaching widespread usage among elite patrons during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, prior to the establishment of soft-paste porcelain factories. Although characterized as more provincial in style than porcelain, French faience was used at the court of Louis XIV as part of elaborate meals and displays, with large-scale vessels incorporated into the Baroque garden designs of Versailles. Earlier examples of French faience attest to the strong influence of maiolica artists from Italy. Later