Émile Balon
Émile Balon (1859-1929) began as the apprentice of Ulysse Besnard (1826-1899) in Blois, France. Ulysse was trained as a genre and portrait painter, but his interest gradually shifted to ceramics and in 1862 he founded a small faïencerie in the town of Cheverny, in the Loire Valley region of France. The ceramic designs produced by the factory evoked the manner of Italian ceramics of the Renaissance and Hispano-Moresque wares, with decorative motifs such as arabesques, candelabrum, and grotesques.
Many of the ceramics featured hand-painted historic scenes and heraldic symbols linked to the royal residents of the Château de Blois, for instance Anne of Brittany (ermine), Louis XII (porcupine), François I (salamander), Claude de France (swan pierced with an arrow). Ulysse was in a sense, reviving the characters who once lived at the Château de Blois, which had recently gone under major restoration.
By the end of the 19th century, the artistic ceramics of Blois were renowned throughout France and abroad. Émile Balon became head of the factory in 1899, then Gaston Bruneau (1881-1965) led the factory until 1953 when the house of Bruneau-Balon closed.
