FAIENCE BLANCHE

(French: white faience), type of French pottery of the late 16th and early 17th centuries; it copied bianchi di Faenza, a sparsely decorated Faenza majolica (tin-glazed earthenware), which appeared about 1570 as a reaction to an overornamented pictorial style. In the simpler form, much of the white area was left exposed, the decoration being merely a central figure or a coat of arms with a conventional wreath around the margin. Nevers and Lyon, where Domenico Tardessir of Faenza set up as a potter in 1574, soon became centres for the popular white tin-glazed earthenware, which then came to be known as faience. Faience blanche, which was unaffected and utilitarian, was for common use; it supplied the basis of an extensive industry in France that lasted into the 19th century.