The Fine Porcelains of Limoges, France

The history of the fine porcelain now known as "Limoges" begins with kaolin, the pure, soft white clay first discovered in China. This clay retains its pure white color when fired. Before they discovered the pure white clay, the Chinese used sandstone/stoneware. Marco Polo was one of the first Europeans to see porcelain; he named it after very white and translucent shell. Vasco de Gama brought back the first porcelain objects to Europe in the fifteenth century .

Louis XIV ordered all silver plate to be melted down to make coins. The dishes needed to be replaced by something else, and the result was immediate demand for porcelain from China. However, the pieces were very expensive. The State decided to find out how porcelain was made and an order went out that anybody who could discover the manufacturing process would be handsomely rewarded. The earliest deposits of the mineral required to make porcelain were discovered near Meissen, in Germany during the seventeenth century. Shortly thereafter, in 1768, Jean-Baptiste Darnet discovered kaolin at Clos de Barre, Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, which was close to Limoges. (Limoges is the capital of Haute-Vienne in South Central France.) This discovery led to the foundation of the Limoges porcelain industry. Turgot, at that time Intendant of the Limousin area, recognized the economic potential for this rather poor region, where all the other elements necessary for this output were readily available. Underground deposits around Limoges also included metals which since the Middle Ages were used to provide metallic oxides for coloring enamel and faïence (high-relief pottery).

The first factories to produce porcelain in Limoges and Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche were set up in 1772 and protected by the Count of Artois. In 1771 the Faïence manufacture was converted into porcelain manufacture, and the region's first hard-paste porcelain began to be made. This initial factory became a subsidiary of the royal factory in Sèvres in 1784. After the French Revolution, there were no State-sponsored factories remaining, but private manufacturers continued the development of porcelain.

By the early nineteenth century the factories were creating the most perfectly white porcelain in Europe, proving the superiority of Limoges kaolins. By the 1830's there were as many as thirty porcelain factories at Limoges. The international renown of this center of porcelain excellence grew, culminating with the triumph of Limoges Porcelain at universal expositions organized around the world from 1855 onward.

The overwhelming majority of porcelain produced in Limoges was decorated by hand, by both well-known and anonymous artists. The best of the collectible hand-painted Limoges china has the artist's signature near the manufacturer's mark.

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