Pair Of Bruyn Fives-lille Vases

Beautiful pair of vases by Antoine Bruyn Fives-Lille. This pair of vases is decorated with enamelled irises, one vase is a shade lighter than the other, which proves the quality of the manual work of the time. This pair is in perfect condition and each vase measures 33 cm in height. In the 18th century Jean Bernard De Bruyn was already running a pottery factory in Louvain in Belgium. After his death in 1805, his son Martin De Bruyn ran the faience factory, which then passed it on to his son Denis De Bruyn. It was Antoine Gustave De Bruyn, son of Denis, who settled in Fives in 1864. First settled in rue de Juliers, he moved to rue de Malakoff, before taking up residence rue de l'Espérance at n°22. It is at this address that the pottery is built. From 1887, the first "decorated slips" from the De Bruyn earthenware factory in Fives-Lille appeared: cache-pots, pitchers, tobacco jars, but also planters and vases, mantelpieces, umbrella stands. And in 1889 De Bruyn was awarded a medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. In 1917, a fire ravaged the factory and greatly disrupted production. If at the beginning of the 20th century, the earthenware factory employed some 150 workers and extended over approximately 1.4 hectares, it had up to 400 at the dawn of the First World War. Sold in the 1950s, the pottery continued to produce before being definitively closed in 1962