Trompe-l'oeil Shell Dish

Marcel Figuères (1928-2017) crossed the 20th century with the passion and talent of the 19th century ceramists. Relentlessly, he sought to dominate the material, its cooking and its decoration to create virtuoso pieces. After starting his career as a ceramist with the Massiers in Vallauris, he attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, where he met his future wife Gilberte, who worked at the St-Jean du Désert earthenware factory, with whom they created in 1952 their own workshop. Among the various specialties that he explored, Marcel Figuères excelled from the 1980s in the art of naturalistic trompe-l'oeil, inspired by elders like Bernard Palissy while researching new ceramic finishing materials, even cooperating with The NASA. He thus resulted in pieces of astonishing realism, including fish which made him famous but also a wide variety of shells like in this plate of seafood. Today, his sons still perpetuate the art by Marcel Figuères, adapting it to the taste of their time.