seau à verre thumbnail 1
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Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Europe 1600-1815, Room 3

seau à verre

Wine Glass Cooler
1739-1749 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

In the mid eighteenth century glass coolers would have been used in order to rinse and cool wine glasses on the dining tables of wealthy people. They would have been filled with iced water and whenever the diner seated nearby wanted a drink, he or she would motion to a servant standing behind their chair. He would bring a tray with a glass of wine and a carafe of water as wine was usually drunk diluted at this time. After the glass was emptied it could be placed in the cooler to be 'refreshed' until another drink was required.

In the exhibition catalogue Daily Pleasures: French Ceramics from the MaryLou Boone Collection, (2012, Los Angeles Country Museum of Art), Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé explains that the grotesque animal decoration found on pieces made at the Moustiers faïence manufactory of Olérys-Laugier is unique. They can however be seen as part of the continuing popular French tradition of grotesques best known from the designs of the seventeenth century artists Jean Bérain and Jacques Callot. The basic outline of the designs would have been applied to the surface using a poncif, a paper pattern on which the outlines would have been drawn and pierced with tiny holes. By rubbing charcoal over these perforations, the design could be positioned in exactly the right place.

Moustiers is a small town perched on a mountainside in Provence in the south of France. In the 18th century it was no more than a village, but due to the ready availability of clay, wood and water, it was home to two important faïence potteries and other more minor ones, less well-known today. In the late 17th century Pierre Clérissy founded the most important dynasty of potters who worked there, but the other pottery of note was founded by Joseph Olérys in 1737. Olérys (1697-1749), had worked in Marseilles as a potter and as a pottery dealer. In 1726 or 1727 he left to work for the Count of Aranda at Alcora in Spain where he set up a manufactory. He mastered the art of producing high temperature colours, grand feu, there, however after ten years he was forced to leave by the native potters, jealous of his success. He returned to the south of France and went into partnership with his brother-in-law Jean-Baptiste Laugier to found a pottery at Moustiers. The OL mark found sometimes on their wares is a combination therefore of both their initials. On this glass cooler, the mark has been painted on the flag held aloft by the grotesque figure riding backwards on the dog-like animal on one side of the vessel.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Titleseau à verre
Materials and techniques
Tin-glazed eathenware, painted in high temperature <i>grand feu</i> colours
Brief description
Tin-glazed earthenware wine glass cooler, cylindrical with two grotesque mask handles picked out in colours, Olérys and Laugier's pottery factory, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, about 1739-1749
Physical description
Tin-glazed eathenware wine glass cooler, cylindrical cooler with two grotesque mask handles picked out in colours, and with single indentation in the rim for a glass stem, painted in ochre and green with plants and grotesque figures, one holding a flag with 'OL' in monogram
Dimensions
  • Height: 10cm
  • Diameter: 11.5cm
Dimensions converted from Imperial
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'OL' (painted in monogram in ochre on base and on flag held by figure on side)
  • 'F.' (painted in ochre for the painter Fouque)
Object history
From the collection of Mrs Margaret Pennington. Bought from or through W. W. Winkworth.
Production
For this mark see Dorothée Guillemé Brulon, Moustiers and Marseilles - Sources et rayonnement, Histoire de la Faïence Francaise, Paris, 1998, p. 30, bottom.
Subjects depicted
Summary
In the mid eighteenth century glass coolers would have been used in order to rinse and cool wine glasses on the dining tables of wealthy people. They would have been filled with iced water and whenever the diner seated nearby wanted a drink, he or she would motion to a servant standing behind their chair. He would bring a tray with a glass of wine and a carafe of water as wine was usually drunk diluted at this time. After the glass was emptied it could be placed in the cooler to be 'refreshed' until another drink was required.

In the exhibition catalogue Daily Pleasures: French Ceramics from the MaryLou Boone Collection, (2012, Los Angeles Country Museum of Art), Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé explains that the grotesque animal decoration found on pieces made at the Moustiers faïence manufactory of Olérys-Laugier is unique. They can however be seen as part of the continuing popular French tradition of grotesques best known from the designs of the seventeenth century artists Jean Bérain and Jacques Callot. The basic outline of the designs would have been applied to the surface using a poncif, a paper pattern on which the outlines would have been drawn and pierced with tiny holes. By rubbing charcoal over these perforations, the design could be positioned in exactly the right place.

Moustiers is a small town perched on a mountainside in Provence in the south of France. In the 18th century it was no more than a village, but due to the ready availability of clay, wood and water, it was home to two important faïence potteries and other more minor ones, less well-known today. In the late 17th century Pierre Clérissy founded the most important dynasty of potters who worked there, but the other pottery of note was founded by Joseph Olérys in 1737. Olérys (1697-1749), had worked in Marseilles as a potter and as a pottery dealer. In 1726 or 1727 he left to work for the Count of Aranda at Alcora in Spain where he set up a manufactory. He mastered the art of producing high temperature colours, grand feu, there, however after ten years he was forced to leave by the native potters, jealous of his success. He returned to the south of France and went into partnership with his brother-in-law Jean-Baptiste Laugier to found a pottery at Moustiers. The OL mark found sometimes on their wares is a combination therefore of both their initials. On this glass cooler, the mark has been painted on the flag held aloft by the grotesque figure riding backwards on the dog-like animal on one side of the vessel.
Bibliographic references
  • Daily Pleasures French Ceramics from the MaryLou Boone Collection, exhibition catalogue, 2012. Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, October 2012- March 2013, catalogue editor Elizabeth A. Williams, with contributions by Meredith Chilton, Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé, Catherine Hess, Victoria Kastner and Elizabeth A. Williams. See nos. 28 and 29, pp 146-149 for three further examples, including a pair, no. 29 with similar decoration of grotesques in a palette of green and ochre. The catalogue entry for the first of the glass coolers (28) by Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé make the following points: high class tablewares were produced by the Provençal faïence manufactories because there was a market for such objects among the local aristocracy of this wealthy region; one did not serve oneself to beverages that stood ready on the dining table, when a diner wanted to drink he or she asked a servant: a tray with a glass of wine and a carafe of water would be brought (wine was usually diluted). To refresh the glasses they were dipped bowl first into a 'rafraîchissoir' or cooler that was sometimes large enough to hold several glasses. Others, like this one, had room for only one glass and the notch in the rim served to secure the stem of a glass once it had been plunged upside down in the water.
  • Commissaire général, M. Henry-Pierry Fourest, Paris, 6 June 1980-25th August 1980, Paris, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux Faiences Françaises, Exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationals du Grand Palais, see introduction to Moustiers section for history, pp 122-124
  • Dorothee Guillemé-Brulon. Histoire de la Faience Française, Moustiers & Marseilles, Editions Massin, Paris 1997. See p. 30 for illustrations including variations of both of the mounted figures on this glass cooler: top right for a large shaped plate decorated in green monochrome for figure riding backwards holding a flag and bottom right (central shaped plate) in black and manganese for figure blowing a trumpet riding a dog-like creature.
Collection
Accession number
C.127-1930

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Record createdJune 7, 2004
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