A Rare 17th Century French Saintonge Lead-Glazed Earthenware Costrel, Attributed to La Chapelle-des-Pots, With Applied Mask and Eagle Medallions, Circa 1600-1650

A rare and highly decorative survival from one of the great pottery traditions of early modern France: a barrel-form costrel (gourde-tonnelet) from Saintonge in the south-west, attributable to the celebrated kilns of La Chapelle-des-Pots near Saintes, and dating to the seventeenth century. 

The costrel is of characteristic Saintonge form, thrown as a barrel and designed with typical practicality to rest on its side or stand upright on its integral foot. Twin strap handles rise from the shoulder to flank the ribbed filler neck, with an angled drinking spout — the tétine — set to the front. Suspended from a strap or carried to the field, it would have held wine or water for the working day; the form descends directly from medieval Saintonge prototypes and remained in production for centuries.

To the front face is an applied, matrix-moulded mask within a ruffled foliate surround — the masque à collerette characteristic of seventeenth-century Saintonge production — while the side carries a second moulded medallion of an eagle, most likely heraldic in inspiration. Stamped appliqués of this type, including both masks and heraldic beasts, have been recovered from kiln-site excavations at La Chapelle-des-Pots, providing an unusually secure archaeological basis for the attribution.

The whole is dressed in the classic Saintonge palette: a pale cream slip ground splashed and dappled freely in copper-green and rich manganese-brown under a glassy lead glaze, thinning at the foot to reveal the warm salmon-pink body. The effect is painterly, spontaneous and entirely of its region — Saintonge stood alongside the Beauvaisis as one of the two great centres of French glazed earthenware from the sixteenth century.

A rare opportunity to acquire a complete and honest example of early French vernacular pottery of genuine museum quality.

Provenance: France. 17th-Century. Comparable examples are held in the Musée Archéologique de Saintes, and a related lead-glazed costrel with applied mascaron, dated c. 1600–1650, is in the collections of the Musée du Louvre. The standard reference is Jean-Yves Hugoniot, Terres de Saintonge: L'art de la poterie XIIe–XIXe siècle (Somogy, 2002).

Material: Earthenware decorated with lead glaze.

Condition: Good original condition commensurate with age and use. Expected flaking losses to the glaze, particularly at the foot and high points, revealing the body beneath; old wear consistent with period use. No restoration.

Dimensions: 7¾ in wide x 6 in deep x 7¾ in high (20 cm x 15 cm x 20 cm)