Visiting the Sèvres – Cité de la Céramique: the National Museum of Ceramics at Sèvres

You may have heard of porcelain dishes made by the Sevres Porcelain Manufacturers;  such dishware has been considered of high quality in design and material for hundreds of years to the present day.  That site is also the location of the National Museum of Ceramics, which I visited recently.  It is located on the Seine just outside the city limits of Paris and the manufactory dates from 1738, though it was originally in another part of the outskirts of Paris until 1756.  The museum dates from the early 1800s and was started by one of the directors of the porcelain plant.

Sèvres – Cité de la céramique

Looking at the museum from across the Seine

As you can see, this is a very large museum very near the Seine (the boats are actually houseboats, which you can find up and down the Seine).  It has an astonishing collection of pottery, not only porcelain, but other kinds of pottery from all over the world and spanning much of the history of pottery.   Chuck and I ended up being one of the few people in the museum on a Saturday, and we had our own tour guide, a displaced American who has lived in France for 25 years.  Lucky for me because our tour was in English.  I asked LOTS of questions!

Most of my photos are posted at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/candysidner/sets/72157637778094346/with/10912689805/

However, a few pieces are here, so that you can get a sense of what this museum is like.

A piece of Mexican pottery from the 1600s is below.  I thought the decoration was superb.  This large piece is also in perfect condition.

One piece from about 1600 from the large collection of Italian faience style pottery in the museum is intricately painted.  It shows the Biblical story of Joseph finding his cup hidden in Benjamin's sack.

In the 1800s it was fashionable to have old masterworks copied using porcelain paints and painted on porcelain surfaces.  Below are two photos of excellent examples (I did not take these--I ran out of camera space so these are from the web).

The first floor of the museum holds pottery from before the 1800s, and the second floor was devoted to more recent work (1800s and on) with much of it from Sevres.  The main hall of the second floor holds large pieces made at Sevres long ago when designers first figured out how to do such things.  The center vase below is easily 10 feet high, not including the pedestal.

You can see more examples of their extensive collection of 50,000 pieces at 

http://www.sevresciteceramique.fr/site.php?type=P&id=7

Sevres continues to make porcelain and to encourage the ceramic arts as well as sell its own traditional and modern pottery.  I hope to go back and take a painting class in the spring!