Large Patterned Mug On Matte Blue Glaze, By Jean De Lespinasse, 1950s / 1970s

A large blue matte enameled ceramic mug made in Nice in the 1950s/1960s, signed by the artist Jean de Lespinasse (1896-1979) on the "JDL" base. It has a beautiful organic decoration created by the combination of stripes with floral patterns that contrast with the matte blue background.

A member of the Resistance on the Côte d'Azur during the Second World War, Jean de Lespinasse created a local craft business at the end of the war, then he created SOCFRA with his wife, which produced ceramics from the end of the 1940s. Their path then crossed that of Roger Capron and his wife Jacotte, the Madoura workshops, Robert Picault and Georges Tardieu.

The ceramic workshop, located in the Cimiez district of Nice, employs around ten people (casting pieces, DIY, baking biscuits, decorating, glazing, cooking, etc.). The raw materials used to make the biscuits, and then to glaze the pieces, are purchased in Vallauris. The ceramics are sold in stores on the Côte d'Azur, initially, and then throughout France and abroad. Twice a year, the collections are presented at the Lyon fair and at the Salon des Arts du Feu in Paris. The workshop also rented shops during the summer season in Sainte-Maxime (from 1958 to 1961), Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Vallauris (which is why the name of this town appears under some pieces), to sell its production made in Nice.

The pieces generally bear the acronym "jdl" as well as a number, which corresponds to the catalog that Lespinasse and his son-in-law used when they went on tour to present the collections. The workshop's activity ceased in the early 1980s, after the death of the founder. The pieces signed by the Jean de Lespinasse workshop are generally voluminous, nervous and very structured. We note above all a superb work in the enamel, between the matt and the shiny, which demonstrates a great mastery of the art of ceramics.