French Haviland Limoges Signed Couturier Vase Barbotine Terra Cotta Pottery Faience Painted Impressionism Japonisme Rabbit c 1876 to 1882

495/RL-171

This is a 19th century French Haviland Barbotine vase, painted in the Impressionistic Japonisme style by the artist Philibert-Leon Couturier at the Auteuil Studio in Paris. The age is circa 1876 to 1882.

Couturier mostly painted barnyard fowl or poultry, such as ducks, chickens, roosters and geese, and also birds of prey. This is the only known vase in existence painted by Couturier that shows a rabbit or hare.

The vase is 13 ½" high, 8" long and 7 ½" wide. The vase weighs about 4 ½ pounds.

This type of glaze is difficult to photograph, so there are bright white glares in some photos.

The vase was decorated at the L'Atelier d"Auteuil Haviland, or the Workshop of Auteuil Haviland, in Paris. Couturier painted in the same style as the other Auteuil artists, which was a style based on Japanese techniques and using Impressionism, or Japonisme.

The Auteuil Studio produced pottery pieces, a terra-cotta, which is considered to be a form of faience.

Couturier painted natural animals against vivid backgrounds. On this vase, the rabbit is sitting against an impressionistic background, where the bottom is muted greens and browns, whereas the top is a bright blue mottled with white. The difference is to reflect the natural background of the rabbit, outlined against the leafy grass and blue sky. As you revolve the vase around, you can see how the green and brown shading extends further up the vase, and the space devoted to the colors of the sky narrows in size.

The artist's signature is P.L. C., and it is on the vase to the left and bottom of the rabbit. I provide a close up photo of the signature.

The vase has crazing because all of the Barbotine glazing is crazed. There is a tight hairline inside the neck of the vase, which I show in a photo. The hairline does not go through the pottery. There is another tight hairline on the bottom of the vase, also shown in a photo. The dimples and bumps on the vase are a natural part of the pottery and glazing. A few tiny nicks on the underside of the pottery are typical wear and are not flaws; they can't be seen in the photo of the underside.

The incised mark is Haviland & Co followed by Limoges.

You can see some photos of other works painted by Couturier in the exhibit booklet "The Art of Haviland Pottery", published by the Haviland Collectors International Educational Foundation, showing the Haviland Pottery on exhibit at the Alfred Berkowitz Gallery at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 2006. If you need other reference sources, please view my other listings of Haviland artist signed Barbotine.