Vintage Quimper Style Scalloped Bowl in Blue with Hand Painted Breton Woman

A vintage Quimper style faience bowl, oval with a scalloped blue sponged rim and a hand painted Breton woman, made in Brittany and marked Port Navalo Peint Main.

She stands in the centre in her white coiffe, red sleeves, sunflower yellow apron and full blue skirt, flanked by two feathery sprays of green leaves and a little cluster of red berries, just as Breton painters have drawn their countrywomen for well over a century. A fine yellow line circles her, and beyond it the sides are softly fluted and finished with a sponged cobalt rim that dips and curls in scallops all the way round.

Port Navalo is a small harbour village at the mouth of the Gulf of Morbihan in southern Brittany, and pottery like this was painted for the shops along that coast, carrying the Quimper look of sponged edges and folk figures to generations of holidaymakers. The base is printed Port Navalo Peint Main, meaning painted by hand, and the brushwork shows it, with every leaf and fold of the apron slightly different from the next. The colours are bright and the glaze clean and glossy.

The bowl measures 20cm long, 15cm wide and 6cm high, a good size for using every day rather than tucking away in a cupboard.

Fill it with clementines or cherry tomatoes on the kitchen table, set it on a dresser among blue and white jugs, or keep it by the front door for keys and loose change. It sits happily alongside other Quimper pieces, and would make a lovely present for anyone who has spent a summer in Brittany or who loves French country pottery.