This French faience sauce boat and its original matching dish are described as originating from La Rochelle and dating to circa 1740. The sauce boat has a historic staple repair to a crack, and both handles have also been repaired. The boat measures 22.5 × 16.5 × 6.5 cm, while the dish measures 20.5 × 16.5 × 2.5 cm.
Given how fragile French faience of this period was, it is remarkable that this lovely sauce boat, with its original matching dish, has survived at all let alone in such good condition.
Faience, or tin-glazed and enamelled 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.
Each piece would have been very valuable at the time and so, if it became damaged, it was definitely worthwhile that it should be repaired and this wonderful example has a staple where the sauce boat had been cracked. Both the handles at some time had also been cracked and were also repaired. This sauce boat and dish are superb survivors.
Often faience at this time were thrown on a potters wheel but this set were clearly hand formed and hand fired as can be seen from the marks on the base of the dish.
To date I have never seen another example of a sauce boat and dish from this period and the area of La Rochelle so this set is extremely rare.
The boat measures 22.5 x 16.5 x 6.5 centimetres and the dish 20.5 x 16.5 x 2.5 centimetres.
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