Albert-Louis Dammouse
In the 1880s, after many years as a modeler and decorator for Sèvres and factories in Limoges, Albert-Louis Dammouse devoted himself to studio pottery. Influenced by Ernest Chaplet, Dammouse came to view stoneware as an ideal ceramic medium, similar to porcelain in durability and receptivity to high-temperature glazes, but more economical and easier to produce. He gravitated toward Japanese influences and adopted a repertoire of stylized plant motifs that merged perfectly with richly glazed surfaces that were alternately smooth and crusty, thick and thin, matte and glossy. One of Dammouse's marks is pictured above.
Born in Paris in 1848, Albert-Louis Dammouse was the son Pierre-Adolphe Dammouse, a modeler and decorator at the Sévres factory. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, young Dammouse began working at Sévres. He established his own studio within the manufactory (Sévres's customary practice with promising artists) and helped Louis Solon develop pâte-sur-pâte decoration. Dammouse spent the decade of the 1870s perfecting the decoration of production porcelain at the service of various firms. He designed tableware for factories in Limoges, including a service with pierced decoration filled in with translucent glaze. He also produced two large vases that appeared in Pouyat's display at the Exposition Universelle in 1878. The ceramist found occasional work as a decorator at Haviland's barbotine atelier in Auteuil and in 1881 modeled and decorated stoneware at the firm's atelier in Vaugirard.
Dammouse's career took off in a new direction in the 1880s. After assisting Ernest Chaplet in the development of stoneware, he came to view the material as an ideal medium for art pottery. He became known for his expressive style of decoration in which Japanese-inspired imagery was executed in thick, rich glazes. Dammouse placed as much importance upon the textural effects of his glazes as he did upon his nature-based motifs. When Haviland closed its Vaugirard atelier in 1885, Dammouse and his younger brother Edouard-Alexandre founded their own workshop in the town of Sèvres.
Dammouse developed a repertoire of motifs based on flowering and aquatic plant life, which he stylized in the manner of Japanese prints and textiles. Now in his own atelier, he combined his skill as a decorator with his genius as a glaze technician. His combinations of glaze textures presented challenging surfaces for figural imagery and only his technical mastery allowed him to integrate the two succsessfully. In 1898, Dammouse began working in glass, applying some of the same principles to his studio production that he had developed while working in ceramics.
