Sanson Nineteenth, Porcelain Cream Service.

Manufacture de Samson, Paris, porcelain cream service comprising a tray and six small cream pots with handles, cutlery, crowned signatures below each piece. XIXth century. (a handle glued on a pot, partially visible, see last photo) The "Porcelain, earthenware and terracotta factory" of the Samsons (four generations) is the finest example, in the field of fire arts, of the interest brought in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th to the styles of the past, the 18th as well as the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, and for all exoticism, Spain as well as Saxony or China. With a very rich, varied and excellent quality production, the Samsons were geniuses in imitation and the best reproducers of old pieces in the field of ceramic art. Edmé Samson (1810-1891), painter and decorator on ceramics established in 1845 at n°7 rue Vendôme in Paris, bought his whites, in other words undecorated porcelains, from various Parisian factories. His son Emile (1837-1913), who succeeded him, began to make reproductions of old porcelain. Present at the Exhibition of Fine Arts Applied to Industry in 1863, Emile Samson was particularly noted for his porcelain imitating "Old Japan". In 1864, he set up a factory in Montreuil-sous-Bois, near Paris, and had great success at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867 with his imitations of Saxony, China and Japan, all of which were judged to be of very good quality. At the Universal Exhibition of 1889, Samson & Cie was reputed to be specialized in large-scale pieces both in earthenware and porcelain, whose models came from the greatest French and foreign museums, such as the Louvre Museum or the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Emile joined in 1891 with his son Léon (1868-1928), under the name of Samson & Fils, which gave a great extension to the factory, employing a large number of workers and decorators. In addition to the manufacture and decoration of these porcelains, the Samson factory also had a bronze workshop for their superb frames. In general, the Samsons are marked with a monogram featuring the S of the porcelain maker, adapted in various ways.