Barber’s basin with birds and vegetal ornament

Description

March 28, 2009
The deep semicircle cut into one side of this barber’s basin allowed it to be held close to a client’s neck while being shaved by the barber. The whimsical, asymmetrical arrangement of the animal and plant motifs around the basin and the combination of yellow, blue, and green are typical of the faience created at the factory established in 1738 by Joseph Olérys in the French town of Moustiers. Located approximately sixty miles north of the southern coastal city of Marseille, Moustiers boasted large deposits of rich clay that made it a center of fine pottery production since the late seventeenth century. Whereas earlier faience in Moustiers was decorated only in blue underglazing, Olérys brought with him knowledge of how to produce yellows and greens that he had learned at the Alcora pottery factory near Valencia, Spain. The popularity of his technical and artistic innovations made his faience the most widely imitated of all Moustiers pottery.