Vase with scenes of storm at sea ca. 1797–98 Dihl et Guérhard French In the closing decades of the eighteenth century, a number of porcelain factories were established in Paris that offered both commercial and artistic competition to the Sèvres factory, despite the latter’s royal status and the patronage of its products as encouraged by Louis XVI (1754–1793), king of France. Many of these newly founded factories had royal protectors who allowed them to operate regardless of the monopoly that Sèvres continued to enjoy, and the majority of the Paris enterprises focused solely on the production o

Vase with scenes of storm at sea ca. 1797–98 Dihl et Guérhard French In the closing decades of the eighteenth century, a number of porcelain factories were established in Paris that offered both commercial and artistic competition to the Sèvres factory, despite the latter’s royal status and the patronage of its products as encouraged by Louis XVI (1754–1793), king of France. Many of these newly founded factories had royal protectors who allowed them to operate regardless of the monopoly that Sèvres continued to enjoy, and the majority of the Paris enterprises focused solely on the production of hard-paste porcelain. One of the most successful of these factories was first known by the name of its protector, Louis-Antoine d’Artois (French, 1775–1844), duc d’Angoulême (Manufacture de Monsieur Le Duc d’Angoulême), and later known as the Dihl et Guérhard factory at the time of the French Revolution (1789–99). The factory was founded in 1781 by Christophe Dihl (German, 1753–1830), a potter from Neustadt, in collaboration with Antoine Guérhard (French, d. 1793), who, along with his wife Louise-Françoise-Madeleine Croizé (French, 1751–1831), provided the funds and assumed the administrative responsibilities for the new firm.[1] Critically, the factory was able to acquire the patronage of the duc d’Angoulême despite the fact that he was only five at the time that his protection of the factory was granted. By 1785, the factory was sufficiently successful to be able to employ thirty painters and twelve sculptors,[2] and it soon outgrew its original quarters on the rue de Bondy and moved to new premises on the rue du Temple in 1789. Dihl’s technological expertise must have been considerable, because the quality of the factory’s products was unusually high, and the level of decoration practiced by the factory’s painters made its wares among the finest of any of the Parisian firms. The factory became known for its skill in painting grounds in

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