An important and massive Pair of Rouen Faience models of seated lions, the male and female each seated, confronting, guardant, and looking to one side, the terracotta animals carefully formed with great sculptural work to the manes, ears and snarling faces, the tin glazed bodies picked out in blue and manganese to incorporate the highly detailed features, on rectangular bases.

The Lions have a romanesque quality about them, which has its roots in carving within churches from the Byzantine period, but a style that was popular within the 11th and 12th centuries, and also in the stonework of the Renaissance within the 16th Century European art. Although the colouring is reminiscent of work on Italian pottery, a Rouen attribution cannot be ruled out.

The lions originated from the Chinese dogs of Fô, which were imported into France during the 18th century in many different media some of which were in porcelain. These fabulous beneficent Chinese beasts, associated with Buddha were placed at temple entrances and patrician homes to protect the occupants from evil spirits. The French much appreciated them and associated them with their own heraldic art. From the beginning of the 18th century many Rouennaises factories offered lions of this type, based on Chinese dogs coloured in a way to fit in with heraldic art.  Two sizes were commercially produced: the largest being 70 to 80cm high which were destined to be integrated into the decorative architecture of grand buildings to sit either side of entrance gates or at the base of grand staircases; the smaller ones were no larger than 20cm high and were used as garnitures on either chimneypieces or on a piece of furniture. One pair of small lions of this type is in the Ceramic Museum of Rouen although we do know of similar ones, although slightly smaller (H: 72.5cm) (Peintures et sculptures de faîence, Rouen XVIIIème,  siècle” Museum of Ceramics, Rouen, October 1999 – January 2000, p. 158, fig.90 and no. 69 and 70, illustrated).

Following the death of the director of the factory, Nicolas Fouquay, an inventory dated 1742 mentions two white lions on the entrance gates of the factory; two lions near the oven; and seven white lions in the shop. It also mentions two large moulds of lions which features amongst the material sold at the same time as the sale of the factory in 1745.  In addition, the inventory of 1755 of the factory of Jacques-Nicolas Levasseur, mentions two garnitures placed on chimneypieces composing each time of four little lions.

The lions we have here are particularly remarkable because of their size, which make them a real ‘tour de force’. The sheer weight of each piece in the kiln could have resulted in each piece sagging. The colours of the blue enamel suggests a date of the first half of the 18th century.

See also Letters written during a Tour through Normandy, Brittany and other parts of France in 1818, letter X p. 107, where it mentions ‘two large blue china lions, who frown defiance upon all intruders’