How a stunning collection of Art Nouveau ceramics moved from Paris to Budapest
The architectural ceramics of French manufacturer Alexandre Bigot were one of the Art Nouveau highlights of the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. Housed in a pavilion designed by Jules Lavirotte, and awarded a Grand Prix, the remarkable ensemble was bought at the Fair by the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest.
Gabriella Balla, Curator of Glass and Ceramics, describes Bigot’s factory and its extensive product range.
In 1894, Alexandre Bigot (1862-1927) established a ceramics factory at Mer, a small town to the southwest of Paris. He put into practice his extensive studies of the natural sciences, chemistry and physics, and his enthusiasm for Far Eastern and modern ceramics.
In its heyday, the Bigot factory employed around 150 workers.
What ceramics did Alexandre Bigot produce?
Bigot’s factory produced stoneware fired at high temperatures, known as grès flammés.
This material was particularly suitable for the decoration and panelling of the facades of modern ferro-concrete buildings. (The company also made various dishes and vases.) The surface of the ceramics was usually covered with special glazes, including crystalline glazes, which often flowed down on the surface of the plastic forms. He also created special matte glazes, using acids to corrode the surface.
The extensive range of products made by the Bigot factory was listed in their catalogue, the second edition of which was issued in 1902.
They offered frost-resisting glazed and unglazed tiles for façade revetments, roof tiles, including ridge-tiles of various shapes, as well as large variety of architectural sculpture, such as columns, pillars, lunettes, lintels, banisters, arches, friezes and parapets.
Ceramics for interior use were also quite varied. Flat tiles for floors and walls were often designed with multi-tile ornaments of various shapes. Their ceramics, which were suitable for decorating large surfaces, fireplaces and ornamental vessels, were made for the elegant urban interiors of the bourgeoisie.
Bigot’s elegant, finely shaped objects were decorated with a variety of figurative and floral motifs, wrapped in warm, colourful glazes.
Similar pieces to the ones in the Museum of Applied Arts can be found on the facades of several Parisian apartment buildings and palaces. The architectural ceramics of Alexandre Bigot were made in various historical styles as well as in the style of Art Nouveau - he never really constrained himself to one style.
For Bigot, the principal challenge was the material and the glazes. The magic of his ceramic objects lies in the glazes which cover daring and exotic shapes, sometimes flowing downwards, at other times appearing in deep tones or gleaming in thick layers.
Bigot at the 1900 World’s Fair
The Bigot factory displayed their ceramic work in Paris at the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in a pavilion, designed by architect Jules Lavirotte (1864-1924).
Photographs show that the display was comprised of many types of decorative architectural stoneware, including a columned portico surmounted by an elaborate cornice, a life-size window facade for a house with columns supporting a balustrade, a staircase railing as well as lintels, floor and wall tiles.
Most of the architectural elements used in the pavilion assembled for the Fair were designed for two buildings by Lavirotte (which are still standing in the 7th arrondissement in Paris). The entrance gate to the Fair was also decorated with a decorative frieze by Bigot, elements of which were also reproduced for the pavilion.
How did the Bigot collection move to Budapest?
At the Fair, the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest acquired an outstanding collection of objects (primarily works of French Art Nouveau) selected by its Director Jenő Radisics.
The most expensive purchase was Bigot and Lavirotte’s pavilion. The production cost alone of its elements was estimated to be 20,000 francs. After bargaining, the purchase price was reduced to 5,000 francs. Louis Delamarre-Didot, the representative of the museum in France, was instrumental in arranging the purchase.
As the building of the Museum of Applied Arts, completed in 1896, is a prime example for the use of architectural ceramics in Hungary, it is natural that Bigot’s technical innovations drew Radisics’s interest.
The total weight of the Bigot pavilion was 12,680 kilograms, therefore its transportation required considerable organisation. The pavilion elements were dismantled in November 1900 and the ensemble was sent to Budapest by train on 13 December 1900. Two days later, Radisics informed the Bigot company in writing that all the ceramics had arrived intact.
The purchase of the Bigot Pavilion in its entirety was perhaps the greatest feat of Jenő Radisics’s long tenure as director of the museum.
From the time of its purchase until recently, only partial elements of the Bigot acquisition had ever been displayed in Budapest. This changed in 2013 when the acquisition was exhibited in its entirety at an exhibition dedicated to Bigot.
Further examples of Bigot’s architectural ceramics can be seen online in the collections database of the Museum of Applied Arts, as well as in Europeana.