Small Blois Earthenware Gourd Celebrating Claude France, Late 19th And Early 20th Century

Small earthenware gourd with a very bright enamel and decorated with a swan with an arrow on the front and the initial C with a crown on the back. Each motif is surrounded by a row of pearls in the white center and the neck and edge of the object are decorated with Renaissance connotation motifs, all on a blue background. The allusion to Claude de France is certain and repeated on many works of this factory. The work is particularly fine and the subjects superimposed. The company of Ulysse Besnard in Blois is at the origin of a fashionable production in the second half of the 19th century when the reference to the Renaissance period was all the rage; the successors of the creator of the company, Balon and Bruneau, reinforced this choice until the closure of the factory in 1953. Piece formerly restored to a loop and the edge of the neck without this attracting the eye. Signature absent but attribution unequivocal.