Adrian Dalpayrat (1844-1910)

Born in Limoges, he went to the School of Drawing as soon as 1859, then to the Municipal School of Painting on Chinaware. After having completed his training he entered the important crockery Jules VIEILLARD Co. in Bordeaux, which he left in 1873 to join Léon SAZERAT’s manufacture (1831-1891) in Limoges. In 1874 he was hired at the crockery FOUQUET and in 1876 he went to Monaco to manage the crockery and it is probably there that he started to get interested in the artistic promises of stoneware. He left after the earth-quake of 1887 and went back to SAZERAT in Limoges. In 1889 he settled down in Bourg la Reine and there started the fabulous work we have known since. In 1892 a first contract was signed with the sculptor Alphonse VOISIN DELACROIX, then a second one which included a two-way exclusiveness on a span of twelve years. The exhibition from December 12th to 27th 1892 of the Georges PETIT Gallery (1856-1920) aroused a general enthusiasm which lasted until the Universal Exhibition of Chicago in 1893. This working together stopped on April 2nd 1893 at the death of VOISIN DELACROIX who was replaced by Jean COULON in 1894. The factory seemed to be in a permanent financial predicament so that it widened its production in 1896 by starting a more “standard” range of china. Adrien DALPAYRAT, now with the help of his sons Albert, Adolphe, Hyppolite, then Paul, went on producing flamed stoneware and was awarded a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. He then made most amazing pieces, some of them set with golden bronze by the Parisian jewellers CARDEILHAC and KELLER. Yet, they still had financial problems and the factory finally closed down in 1906. Utterly forgotten in the 20s, it is only in the 60s that his work will be recognized, and rightly so, as one of the very best.