This company is often known simply as Gien Pottery, after its location in that city. It was established in about 1822 by Merlin Hall, the English founder of the factory of Creil & Montereau, which specialised in earthenwares decorated with English scenes to appeal to the English market. The pottery in Gien, on the other hand, specialised in traditional French earthenwares with scenes and motifs taken from French historical sources, heraldic emblems and contemporary politics. In 1856 it came under the ownership of Geoffroy, Guérin & Cie and thereafter it exhibited at international exhibitions in Paris (1844, where it won an award) and 1867, in London (1862) and Vienna (1873). By the late 1880s it was being criticised for decorated surfaces imitating materials such as wood, and praised for the increasingly immense size of its wares - some vases reached 3 metres in height and 1.2 metres in diameter. The realistic painting of this sad, apparently itinerant character is unusual.