3 rare Paray le Monial ceramic panels 1894-1895

Three rare French ceramic encaustic panels, handmade by Societe Anonyme des Carrelages Ceramiques PARAY-Le-MONIAL (Saone et Loire) in 1894-1895. Included in the photograph gallery are scans from the original Paray le Monial catalogue from 1894-1895 presenting the panel.

Consisting of 4 individual tiles making the internal rosace of 16 tiles, the rosace is then framed by same size Paray le Monial borders. The tiles are all 17.5cm / 6.9 inches square and the total size of each panel is 105cm x 105cm (41.5 x 41.5 inches).

Reclaimed from a maison-maitre in Bordeaux, France, the tiles have cleaned beautifully revealing air-brush level detail in their design and crisp colours in the slip. As the high resolution photographs show there are some tiles displaying small edge nibbles or small chips but all groutable. Two of the panels includes some mitre cut border corners.

There are three panels available, 2 of panel A and 1 of panel B, and scrolling your mouse over the photographs will identify each.

These rare, 130 year old panels can be laid within a stone, tile or antique wood floor although they could also be fixed to walls as decorative features in kitchen, bathroom, conservatory or summer house. There are also commercial opportunities for their use in restaurants, behind a cocktail bar, in the entrance area of a hotel etc.

While the factory producing these tiles has long since closed there is a museum in Paray le Monial dedicated to preserving the record of the exceptional work of Paul Charnoz and his team during the belle epoque. A link to the museum website is here.

NOTE
Antique tiles were most commonly made in single or two tile moulds. Before current computer automation methods their moulds were made by hand and the colour slips mixed by eye. Kiln temperatures could also be variable, as could the firing time. The result is that often tiles display subtle size and thickness variations and there can be tonal variations in colours, owing to the slip mixing and/or firing time. All of this makes these handmade tiles unique and adds to their charm. Some floors display their subtle variations in size and tones, some not, but when photographing we always take a random section of the floor so that it is representative of the whole. A tiler should always dry lay a section of the tiles to familiarise himself with them before starting to fix lay.