Installed on the banks of the Seine in 1666 to manufacture earthenware in the Delft style, the Saint-Cloud factory discovered, a decade later, a secret of soft porcelain. It exploited it successfully at the end of the 17th century. Coffee, tea and chocolate cups were invented there, as well as innumerable small pots for blushes and, for the table, all sorts of objects intended to replace those in goldsmith's trade which had disappeared under the blow of the sumptuary edicts of Louis XIV.
With very French embroideries in blue monochrome, chinoiseries translated in a delicate palette of great fire sometimes raised of gold, and amusing decorations of imbrications in white, the manufacture of Saint-Cloud initiated Europe with the soft porcelain. When the kilns were shut down in 1766, Sèvres, a few leagues away, had already taken over a decade earlier.
This book, which brings together the various aspects of this manufacture, is a guide to better recognize a Saint-Cloud porcelain.
