French aesthetic movement Victorian pottery Jard

Joseph-Theodore Deck, a native of Alsace, trained as a chemist and sculptor, working initially in Strasbourg, Vienna and Berlin before setting up his own atelier in Paris in 1856. Deck began experimenting with Islamic styles and techniques around 1867 and these wares were greatly admired at both Paris and London International Exhibitions in 1867 and 1871. Although his principal interest was in Isnik pottery, Deck later made Japonisme an aspect of his varied experiments in ceramics. His intensely coloured dish of about 1870 with Japanese style decoration, now in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, came from the reference collection started by Herbert Minton, and continued by his successor Colin Minton Cambell, to inspire the Minton arists and technicians. Deck was appointed Director of the National Porcelain Manufactory at Svres in 1887, where he remained until his death in 1891.