Flat XXxl By Theodore Deck. Diam 60cm

Exceptional very large dish by Théodore Deck / AL Régnier decorator! Polychrome enamelled ceramic with floral motifs called "Nymphaea and iris" Marked in the decor for the decorator and recessed on the back for the ceramist. Theodore Deck was born in Guebwiller in the department of Haut-Rhin, In 1841, he entered as an apprentice with the master baker Hügelin Sr. in Strasbourg. In two years, he became acquainted with methods inherited from the sixteenth century, such as the encrustation of pasta colored in the manner of Saint-Porchaire. This learning does not prevent him from spending his free time drawing or modeling clay in the studio of sculptor André Friederich. He arrived in Paris in December 1847. Recommended by Hügelin, he went to the pottery factory of the Bavarian potter Vogt, located rue de la Roquette. The 1848 Revolution interrupts production and Deck decides to return to his hometown. His family then advised him to set up a small terracotta workshop: he made some busts, statuettes, vases, lamps and copies of famous antiques. At the Industrial Arts Exhibition of 1864, Deck managed to present pieces covered with clear, uncracked glazes. He will explain the manufacture and qualities of these transparent enamels when he publishes in 1887 his treatise "La faïence". One year later, he made the first tests of reliefs under transparent enamels. Inspired by oriental ceramics, he evolved characters, birds, flowers, ornaments of all kinds under a glaze turquoise, green, yellow or manganese. It is especially a characteristic blue that the public retains of this technique: a bright turquoise shade which he immediately adopts under the name of "Deck Blue" or "Blue Deck". In the 1870s, Theodore Deck acquired a remarkable mastery of transparent enamels. Always surrounded by a plethora of artists, he continues to diversify his production. In 1887 he is the first ceramist to take the direction of the prestigious manufacture of Sèvres. Deck also trains apprentices who will in turn school. The most famous of them, Edmond Lachenal, will continue the work of the great ceramist by developing his art in the spirit of Art Nouveau. He has been living since 1891 in Paris at the Montparnasse cemetery. It is his friend Auguste Bartholdi who realized his funerary monument on which is engraved the sentence: "He tore the fire to the sky".