The Sarreguemines Museum is taking part in the Rencontres de la Saint-Paul by organizing an exhibition of plates decorated with words from popular songs, operas, nursery rhymes, as well as decorative objects representing musicians.

The tradition of decorating faience with verses and refrains, even music staves, is an old custom going back to the 17th and 18th centuries. In Delft, for example, plates for export were decorated with French tunes. Rouen, Lille and even Nevers followed this custom for their production of high-temperature colours, using couplets from love or “drinking” songs.

Every French region created its own folklore, music, dances and songs. The authors were sometimes well-known poets. The words for Il pleut, il pleut Bergère were written by the poet Philippe Fabre d’Eglantine (1780), J’ai du bon tabac was composed by Abbot Gabriel-Charles Lattaignant, while Le bon roi Dagobert, written around 1790, probably made fun of Louis XVI.

The exhibition “Paroles et musique: sur un air de faïence” displays over 200 pieces from the collections of the Sarreguemines Museum, but also from the Museums of Sèvres and Montereau, numerous private collections and faience factories, including those of Rouen, Choisy and Marseilles.

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