Fontinelle Sea Lion Lamp

This group of sea lions playing with a globe is typical of Louis Fontinelle's production in the years 1927-1931, covered with a slightly beige cracked monochrome enamel of great sobriety in reaction to the decorative abundance and polychromy in use previously. His production forms a charming and humorous bestiary which decorates the shelves of the dining rooms.
This piece is mounted as a lamp, the globe containing a working bulb.
Born in 1886, Louis Fontinelle set up his third workshop in Marines, in Vexin, in 1927. For 4 or 5 years, he produced cracked earthenware pieces there which were particularly popular with Parisian department stores as well as in the export to South America and England. Crackle takes, for aesthetic purposes, a technique of cracking the slip and the glaze by thermal shock as practiced by the Chinese and Koreans in the 12th century.
The tip of the sea lion's snout which holds the globe has a tiny old restoration.
Louis Fontinelle would later settle near Joigny, where he worked until his death in 1964.