Glazed Stoneware Vinegar Pot By Guy Baudat.

Typical example of traditional rural pottery.
Heavily pyritized sandstone in shades of beige, brown and rust.
Interior glazing. Fitted with two handles and lid.
Original tap hole.
Signed below one of the handles.
Height: 23.5 cm.
Width: 17 cm.
Depth: 16 cm.

When one speaks of Guy Baudat ( born 1938), one immediately thinks
of his monumental, allegorical sculptures installed
in his fortress of Châteaubrun.
But behind the artist lies a true craftsman,
the last of France's oldest line of potters.
As a gifted child potter, he joined the family pottery workshop
in the 1970s, and set about perpetuating a veritable savoir-faire.
"I set up in excellent conditions with the equipment
left to me by my father and a large clientele".
The Dampierre workshop employed some forty people
who were proud to perpetuate the handmade, oak-ash-glazed stoneware
fired at 1,300 degrees.
"We're not into folklore, it's really rural pottery".
The workshop supplied hundreds of stores in France
and exported to the United States and Germany.
The Dampierre pottery is now closed, but remains a symbol of the commune.