Vintage French Longwy Jugendstil Ceramic Tile and Wood Square Trivet. A repeating geometric pattern crosses diagonally over the blue background, with a lovingly rendered vine and flower component weaving under and over it on the opposite diagonal. Numbered "29" by hand in red ink and stamped "128" in black ink on the underside. Jugendstil (Youth Style) was the German and Austrian Art Nouveau movement (roughly 1895-1910) that revolutionized design by rejecting historicism for organic, flowing lines, natural forms, and "whiplash" curves. It was popularized by Die Jugend magazine, uniting fine arts with functional handicrafts (Gesamtkunstwerk) in architecture, design, and graphic arts. 

Size: 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 2 1/4 in. 

The French town of Longwy, in the region of Lorraine near the Belgian border, is home to a unique tradition of laying enameled colors on top of ceramic vessels in the style of Asian porcelain that began in the mid 1700s. In 1798 Charles Régnier of the Boch family founded a faïencerie in an abandoned convent, initially producing tablewares that quickly gained national fame thanks to a visit from Emperor Napoleon I, who ordered sets for the Imperial Houses of the Legion of Honour. The beautiful saturated enamels became internationally beloved for their blue shades, from royal to turquoise with a now-characteristic color known specifically as “bleu de Longwy,” and after being acquired by the d’Huart family in 1835 they began to experiment with an enamel technique of applying a white, opaque glaze that allowed them to carve designs in relief on the surface of a vessel, imitating cloisonné compartments separated by metal. Their Orientalist works in the 1870s and the bold, innovative Art Deco works in the 1910s and 20s brought them even greater fame, but war and civil unrest led the factory to fall into disuse from the 40s until the late 1990s, when a handful of descendants of the original artisans revived the business and continue to help it thrive today under the umbrella of the Emblem Group.

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