Search Results

(b Saint-Loup, near Plouay, Côtes-du-Nord, May 5, 1821; d Saint-Raphaël, May 29, 1874).

French painter and designer. He was encouraged to practise drawing by the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine at Lannion. Through the intervention of Félicité-Robert de Lamennais (1782–1854), he was made drawing-master at a religious seminary at Ploërmel, Brittany, although at this stage he had received no instruction and had never seen an oil painting. In 1840 he asked his conseil général for help and left for Paris the following year with a grant of 500 francs. He went to Delaroche’s studio, where he made friends with Picou, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean Aubert (1824–1906) and Jean Eugène Damery (1823–53). Charles Gleyre, who took over Delaroche’s studio in 1843, encouraged and protected him during years of poverty. Daphnis and Chloe (untraced), his first Salon picture, exhibited in 1847, was painted in Gleyre’s studio.

In 1848, on Gleyre’s recommendation, Hamon was given a post as a designer to the ...

(b Rønne, Bornholm, Dec 27, 1834; d Rønne, Dec 9, 1912).

Danish potter and ceramic manufacturer. He served his apprenticeship as a potter in the workshop of Edvard Christian Sonne (1810–76) and then travelled for three years through northern France, Switzerland and Germany, where he worked in various ceramic factories in the Rheinland stoneware region. In 1859 he founded the L. Hjorth’s Terracotta factory in Rønne, where he produced simple, utilitarian wares. In 1862 he began to produce more artistic transfer-printed wares decorated with idyllic landscapes and flower motifs. In 1872 he set up a painter’s studio at the factory and also sent fired wares to artists in Copenhagen, such as the painter and writer Holger Drachmann (1846–1908), for decoration. About 1870 Hjorth began to produce terracotta copies of Greek vases. His inspiration came from the painter Kristian Zahrtmann, who provided drawings and photographs of Greek vases to be used as models. In the 1890s the factory began to manufacture black pottery in Art Nouveau and old Nordic styles....

(b Berlin, c. 1722; d Tune, Oct 27, 1805).

Norwegian painter of German birth. He was probably related to the still-life painter Christian Friedrich Hosenfeller (1706–80) and probably studied at an academy of arts in Germany. Around 1760 he was working in the Herrebø Faience Factory near Fredrikshald (now Halden) in Norway as a faience painter. Some of his predominantly blue-and-white wares were decorated with blossoms, chinoiseries and magnificent shell-like motifs. In 1772 he became a citizen of Fredrikshald and with some of his inheritance money he became a portrait and decorative painter, embellishing furniture and rooms with figurative landscapes and ornaments. He devoted himself, however, to portrait painting in which he seems to have been strongly influenced by such contemporary English painters as Johan Zoffany, John Wright (1745–1820) and William Hogarth. Early works may have been painted c. 1776. In the Nasjonalgalleriet in Oslo there are, among other of his works, three unsigned portraits: ...

German porcelain manufactory. In 1777 a porcelain factory was founded in Ilmenau (Thuringia) by Christian Zacharias Gräbner; its products were imitations of wares produced by Wedgwood and Meissen Porcelain Factory. From 1808 to 1871 the factory was known as Nonne and Roesch; in the 20th century it was nationalized under the communists, and is now an independent company. Its products are marked as Grafvon Henneberg porcelain....

Chinese porcelain made for export to the West in the 18th century. The monochrome decorations depicted Christian subjects such as the nativity and crucifixion. There is no evidence that the porcelain was commissioned by the Jesuits, but the European engravings on which the decorations were based may have been brought to China by Jesuit missionaries....

(b Næstved, March 6, 1846; d Næstved, Nov 16, 1917).

Danish ceramic manufacturer. He received his training as an apprentice at the Kähler ceramic factory. The concern had been founded in Næstved in 1839 by his father, Joachim Christian Herman Kähler (1808–84), who was a potter and tiled-stove manufacturer. Kähler attended the technical colleges in Næstved and Copenhagen (1864–5) and assisted as a modeller in the studio of the sculptor Hermann Wilhelm Bissen. He then travelled abroad until 1867.

In 1872 the concern was divided between Kähler and his brother Carl Frederik Kähler (1850–1930), but the latter withdrew in 1896. Kähler took over the manufacture of tiled stoves and faience and increasingly experimented with glaze and lustre effects. In 1888 Karl Hansen Reistrup (1863–1929) joined the concern as artistic director. Kähler achieved recognition for the factory at the Great Nordic Exhibition of 1888, held at the Industrial Association in Copenhagen. At the Exposition Universelle of ...

(b Merseburg, Nov 23, 1706; d ?Berlin, after 1738).

German sculptor and porcelain modeller. He was the brother and probably pupil of the Dresden court sculptor Johann Christian Kirchner (1681–1732). On 24 March 1727 he was employed at the Meissen Porcelain Factory as Modellmeister and was responsible for the design of tablewares. His most important achievement was the creation of the large, white animals and birds for the Japanisches Palais in Dresden of Frederick-Augustus I, Elector of Saxony. In this venture he was joined by Johann Joachim Kändler in June 1731. Kirchner’s animals were static, anthropomorphic and derived more from printed images than from actual observation of nature (see fig.). This is exemplified by his rhinoceros (possibly derived from an engraving by Dürer) and his elephant (1731; Dresden, Porzellansamml.), which bear scant resemblance to the actual animals. Kirchner was a difficult employee and colleague and he left Meissen in 1733. He was briefly employed there again in ...

German ceramics manufactory. In 1764 Caspar Lorenzen and Christian Friedrich Clar founded a pottery in Rendsburg (Holstein). The factory made tin-glazed earthenware such as snuff-boxes, cane-handles, bishop-bowls and tureens, often decorated with floral designs in a Chinese style. In 1772 the factory switched production to cream-coloured earthenware, and after a change of ownership in ...