10m2 - Period French ceramic in a cool palette with double borders

An impressively detailed French ceramic floor dating from the early part of the twentieth century, reclaimed from a Fermette in a small village called Limont Fontaine in Picardie, northern France. The floor was manufactured by Usine de Montplaisir, Maubeuge and we have included below a scan from the period Montplaisir catalogue in our possession showing the floor. Of 14.5cm square tiles, the floor comprises of a main field tile and a same size back to back lay border tile. The design has a strong floral theme, popular during the period, with the stunning detail creating an almost hand painted feel to each tile. In palette, the principal colour of the floor, apparent in the fond of both the main field and the border tile, is a sky blue and amongst the swirling of the summer flowers and what appear to be sheaves of wheat there is mid blue, leaf green, white and charcoal present in the detail.

The total surface of the floor is 10m2 / 107 sq ft.

All of the border corner pieces have not been reclaimed but can easily be mitre cut from existing borders. The floor has cleaned well, revealing a rich patina with some tiles displaying edge nibbles and small groutable chips. A proportion of tiles also have surface capillary cracks as photographs of a random section of the floor below shows; capillary cracks are c. 15mm surface cracks that formed when the tile was removed from the kiln after firing and reacted to a higher than normal humidity in the room at the time during the cooling process. A damp day, in other words, in a turn of the century factory which did not have the technology to maintain constant heat and humidity levels. In essence, the heat from the tile was trying to depart while the humidity in the air was being drawn into the tile. The crack is surface level and does not effect their solidity (they are already more than 100 years old!).

Tile quantities, give or take one or two:-

Field tile – 350 - 7.4m2 / 80sq ft.

Large borders – 120 - 2.5m2 / 27 sq. ft or 17.5 linear metres / 57.6 linear feet*

Large border corners – 2 internal corners and 1 external corner

plus free offcuts

* Halve the lengths for a back to back border lay as shown in the photographs