Circa 1730/1740, Very Large & Hugh Ceramic Lion From Rouen

VERY LARGE AND RARE POLYCHROME EARTHENWARE ENTRANCE LION IN ROUEN FACTORY
CIRCA 1730/1740

PLAIN FIRE COOKING CERAMIC, which means that the shape of the terracotta piece, its enamel and its decorative colours have been fired in a single time, allowing its ceramist any repent. Polychromy is obtained using metal oxides placed on a tin enamel, i.e. based on tin, also in powder form. The blue to grey of the base and mouth, dark brown to black are obtained from cobalt and manganese oxydes, and yellow and ochre of the mane using antimony oxides.
The glaze has a fine network of very homogeneous cracks throughout the ceramic.

Design of this large lion is exactly those that always found in the Louis XIV period sculpture, often stone carved and sometimes produced in ceramic: lying on a pedestal or sitting, looking straight ahead or slightly to the side, leaning on its two front legs or one placed on a coat of arms, ... They frequently have their mouths open, revealing their openwork teeth, even if our example here struggles in an amusing way to scare its viewers !

Please notice specially the haughty stature of the sculpture, the head held high and the body powerfully planted on its 2 front legs. The mane, treated in voluptuous golden curls, still gives it a majestic presence, but also imitates in an amusing way hairstyles - often wigs, gentlemen of the Court of King Louis XIV, or even the King himself. A documented pair of these lions even pushes the caricature game to represent them as a couple, with clearly the man and the woman ! (please check last photo)

Good condition of this very important and heavy piece, apart from a restoration on the lower hind part, of the lion's tail and a jump of enamel or a splinter on one of the curls of the mane. The rectangular base, protruding and supporting the entire weight of the lion, is surprisingly intact, as is the openwork teeth of the lion, which should give it a more threatening attitude.

Large sizes are quite impressive: 50*30 cm FOR THE BASE and no less than 70cm HIGH for this lion.

This lion could have been part of a pair - even if most of those preserved are alone, like the very similar example but enamelled all in white, kept at the Musée de la Faïence in Rouen (please check last photo of this ad) which one could easily imagine presented in the main entrance of a castle, often raised on plinths in order to further magnify their presence.

Attribution and dating by an apocryphal collector's inscription, in red painting under the base, of this ceramic lion to a Delft production around 1880 cannot be retained here.
I have added at the end of my ad photos of several very similar pieces, some even from the same mold (similar dimensions and identical typology)