Petit Breton

This summer, we helped to take care of a neighbor’s cat while she went back to France for the summer. While we were standing in her kitchen as she went over the details, I noticed some cups with figures that looked similar to those on my Quimper pottery. Although I’m pretty sure I was saying Quimper correctly (kam-pair) she did not know what I was talking about but when I googled it to show her she said excitingly “Bretagne yes that’s where I’m from!”

I never really set out to collect Quimper pottery, but because I loved some blue and orange bowls from Spain that my grandmother had given us, my parents gave me her blue and orange Quimper dishes when she died.

The sugar bowl has what I now know is called a “petite breton”. According to the website frenchaffaires.com, Quimper has been the center of faience or pottery production in France for over 300 years and “the folk aspect of Quimper pottery intensified when regional costumes became popular across Europe in the late 1800’s. In the 1860’s, the familiar figure of the “petit breton” wearing sabots (wooden clogs), embroidered skirts or vests with hats or coifs (a woman’s hat) was first depicted on the pottery.”

Since my parents were giving me the dishes, they also gave me a stack of small plates.

And then, of course, my collection expanded (as collections do) when my sister gave me some pieces she bought at auctions.

I realized that all my pieces only show a woman, unlike my neighbor’s cups, although I also have a metal tray with a Quimper image of both a man and a woman that my sister gave me. (Well, actually, I gave it to her, but then she gave it back it to me thinking that I had given it to my mother and she had somehow ended up with it)

And now I have two more examples as my neighbor returned from France with gifts. She gave us the same things she gave all the cat helpers, including some wonderful buttery cookies in a tin.

And because I had mentioned my collection she gave us each a mug with an attached spoon. Mine features a “petit breton” couple!

My husband’s features a new image, but one that I think is also very French!

Of course, some rearranging of the China cabinet was necessary!