JAIP1

Journal of the Académie Internationale de la Pipe, Vol. 1 (2008)

Liste des marques décoratives (MD)
- Planche 2 -

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English Summary by P J Davey The numbers of potters and pipe makers rose through the
eighteenth and nineteenth century reaching their height in
The Pipe Makers of Saint-Quentin in the 1851, with 84 potters and 61 pipe makers.
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries:
2. The potters’ organisation
English summary by P J Davey
There is evidence for some sort of corporate activity in
Introductory note to the summary the form of a syndicate or trade association often referred
to as the corps des potiers or “company of potters”. From
The English text which follows is neither a précis nor a the seventeenth century the potters had to pay rent to the
translation, but rather an attempt to convey in English the Duc of Uzès to whom, from time to time, they pledged
main elements of the monograph with sufficient detail to allegiance. But, in February 1705, 50 potters from St
be understandable if used alongside the illustrations in Victor and St Quentin signed an agreement with
the French original. It is organised according to the merchants in the town of Sauve that they would route all
chapter numbers and sub-divisions of the main text. of their production through them in return for the
Directly translated quotations from the original, provision of glazing materials. Three months later the
themselves sometimes quotations, are set between double intendant of Languedoc revoked this agreement and
inverted commas. ordered the potters to use the public markets for selling
their wares. A new syndicate was in place by 1750 when
A 100-word French-English glossary is also provided. the number of potters had reached 61. It is clear from the
This is intended to include all of the non self-evident documents that many of the individuals involved in both
terms used in the captions, diagrams, tables and potting and pipe making were small farmers who found
catalogues. that ceramic activity provided a useful supplement to
their income.
I: A workshop called ‘Saint Quintin’
3. The nature of ceramic production
The region of Uzès, to the west and north of Avignon,
consists of a series of calcareous plateaux called Despite an increase of 40% in its population between
garrigues. Archaeological evidence shows that, from the 1728 and 1821 St Quentin remained a small village in
Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century, it was a which everyone knew everyone else. Its reputation as a
significant pottery producing area both for local pottery centre did not rest on the products of a single
consumption and external trade. The main centres of workshop but of the whole community as almost
production, based on the presence of suitable clay everyone was involved in some way in the industry. The
sources, were three small villages, Serviers, St Victor- pottery was always of a very utilitarian nature, “good on
des-Oules and St Quentin-la-Poterie. Whilst the pottery the fire” and the products of individuals were not usually
they produced was mostly of a utilitarian nature it did recognised by the use of marks or stamps.
include the use of slip decoration and glazes. The pottery
industry also involved clay miners, the production of The pipe makers worked in the same kind of way, but
bricks, crucibles and clay tobacco pipes. with some concession to their competitors in the north.
Their products were generally of modest price and little
This latter activity appeared at the beginning of the decorated, but were of sufficient quality to be exported to
eighteenth century and placed St Quentin among the Italy and further afield. On the other hand, from the
premier production centres in France along with those of beginning of the nineteenth century they began to mark
the Pas de Calais. pipes by stamping them with sets of initials and numbers
on the bowl facing the smoker (the „front‟ of the bowl
1. The importance of ceramic activity in the eighteenth throughout the text), which allows the products of
century individual makers to be identified. A die with the letters
JS is mentioned in the inventory of Jacques Saussine in
Documentary evidence shows that in 1672 „St Quintin‟ 1825. The reasons for this departure from anonymity are
had 25 houses possessing kilns for the making of „oules‟, obscure; possibly political uncertainty, dissention
which are two-handled storage jars or cooking pots. The between families in the village or internal and external
word derives from the latin olla and gave its name to St competition.
Victor-des-Oules. The kilns, which seem to have had a
working life of 7 to 10 years, were owned by individuals Of the 61 pipe makers recorded in 1851 only two
and used by a number of ceramicists who had to give survived the century. Competition from briars and a
three days notice of firing. When the kiln was not in general regional economic decline were to blame.
service its owner could use it for storing his own Nevertheless Job Clerc succeeded in retaining the
possessions. This arrangement suited the pipe makers reputation of St Quentin beyond the frontiers of France
whose need for firing their products was intermittent. for some considerable while into the twentieth century. A
silent tribute to the industry can still be seen high up on
the front of the Town Hall – a stone sculpture of a pot

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containing seven clay pipes that still remains as the Journal of the Académie Internationale de la Pipe, Vol. 1 (2008)
unofficial emblem of the village.
II: The eighteenth-century heritage
4. History of archaeological research
1. Pipes with moulded marks in relief
Over a period of more than twenty years a total of over
9,000 clay pipe fragments, including production waste, The St Quentin finds include a number of pipes in
have been recovered, along with a great deal of locally eighteenth-century forms which have moulded marks and
made pottery, on agricultural land to the north-east of the decoration in the English style:
village where they seem to have been deposited by pipe
makers who were on one of the routes from the village to MR 1 and MR 2 have heart-shaped designs on the front
their clay sources. The pottery and pipe fragments appear of the bowl. A TD mark is also by an unknown local
to have been valued by the farmers as a means of maker. A single GD pipe in four pieces is by the mid-
breaking up the heavy clay soil of the region. eighteenth-century maker Gabriel Dubois, a PA fragment
is by Pierre Abauzit of the late eighteenth or early
5. Analysis of the finds nineteenth century and an HT pipe of the same period is
attributed to Henry Taulon. The makers of a single GB
The surface collection of such a large number of pieces mark and 12 examples of PG in an elaborate frame are
of clay pipe from over 20 deposits provides a significant unknown.
group of material from which to study the local pipe
making industry. The finds are extremely fragmented due 2. The traditional forms
to repeated ploughing and the effects of the regular
transit of heavy carts. This is not so much of a problem The St Quentin pipe makers were not innovators; they
for the nineteenth-century products which are very adopted forms that were already current elsewhere. The
numerous, but is an issue for the earlier material which is presence and evolution of these forms, combined with
much scarcer. A number of analytical techniques have the evidence of maker marked and stamped examples
been applied: provides the basic chronological structure for any study
of the industry and its products. Three major families of
1) The material from each of the deposits has been form types have been identified: the Belgian, the
classified and quantified. The site plan shows the Genoese and the Marseillaise.
distribution of the dumps to the north-east of the village.
Of the 337 maker-marked stems only ten (6%) are the The Belgian
products of other regions of France. Sites 4, 6 and 20 Pipe making in the territory that was to become Belgium
also contain rejects from Job Clerc, whose factory is first recorded in 1637 and had the advantage of a local
operated almost entirely during the twentieth century and Andennes clay that already provided a major source for
so is not included in this monograph. production further north in the Low Countries. The
makers in Liège, Namur, Tournai and Anvers adopted
2) A study of the forms present has allowed a forms and markings that are virtually indistinguishable
typological series for local production to be established. from those used in Gouda.
In addition, the recording of varieties of surface
treatment has helped to define the specific methods of the In 1831 Belgium was recognised as a sovereign country
local makers. For example, unlike the workshops of and in 1838 the Andenne maker Gustave Dosogne
northern France, burnishing and glazing was not created a Belgian model. In Blanc-Garin‟s catalogue
employed. published in the same year the Belge clearly denotes a
type of pipe and includes examples that used the marks
3) The stamps and other maker marks observed on the 46, PV and JG. Later on in the century Saillard (1843)
pipes have been systematically recorded and carefully and Culot (1862) both refer to the Belgian form as being
compared with what is known of individuals from the produced in northern France using Andennes clay and
historical records. For the marks on the underneath of employing a wider range of Dutch-style marks.
the heels, microphotography has been used in order to
retrieve the detail. The Genonese
Pipes in English forms and stamps appear to have been
4) Finally, archaeological drawing techniques have produced in Venice from 1793 when a Severino Meidel
been employed to ensure standard representation of the was given a 15-year licence to make pipes “in plaster” in
pipe fragments, however partial. the English and Dutch manner. A significant number of
such pipes bearing the stamp WM on the front of the
The table which ends the chapter provides a breakdown bowl and sometimes the same moulded letters on the
of the major types that have been found in each deposit: sides of the heel are explained by Boscolo as having been
forms (C, F etc), stamps (E), relief marks (MR), name produced from English moulds deriving from the London
marks on the stem (MN) and stem decoration (MD). The maker William Manby (1719-1763). At the same time,
final column indicates which makers‟ products have been around 1795, the French maker Louis Vandenbosche,
found in each deposit. based in Arras, was producing English-style forms with
the letters TD stamped on the bowl. Although no direct
connection between Vandenbosche and St Quentin has

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