Pair of HB Quimper, French Faience Plates

An attractive pair of Mid-20th Century, Hb Quimper, French Faience Plates, each naively painted. One is decorated with the figure of a young Breton in traditional dress. He is standing facing right and holding what looks like a shepherd’s crook. The other is decorated with the image of a Petite Bretonne, she is standing, facing to the left, holding a posy of flowers. Both scenes are within a simple border of dusky pink and dark blue sprigs of flowers, set between two concentric blue lines. The town of Quimper is known for its faience pottery, which is earthenware covered with a glaze that contains tin oxide. This so called tin-glazed pottery has much in common with Dutch Delft, Italian Majolica and other tin-glazed earthenware made in countries such as England, Spain and France. The markings on the back of the plates were a method used from 1942 and continuing until the 1960s, the majority of pieces produced at the Hb factory were marked this way. The numbers signified the form of the particular piece, the first letter identified the head of the studio where it was decorated and the last letter identified the individual painter-decorator that did the actual painting on the piece.