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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dgbjwc, post: 8466693, member: 308&quot;]The folks decorating Limoges china varied a great deal in their skill. Some were able to dash off quick pieces (see the artists of Flambeau) and others could be quite skilled (see the artists of Jean Pouyat). The skilled artists may be collected in their own right but a piece is usually valued more for being a Jean Pouyat than by the individual artist who decorated it. </p><p><br /></p><p>Back to Flambeau. Many of their pieces are signed simply &quot;Rene&quot; or &quot;Levy&quot; which are impossible to track back to the individual artists. I&#039;ve often thought that there were perhaps more than one &quot;Rene&quot; or &quot;Levy&quot; who produced pieces for Flambeau based on the same design as dictated by the company. Due to the volume of Flambeau on the market multiple artists by the same name seem possible. Unfortunately, the records haven&#039;t yet come to light to prove one way or the other. Arguably, many of their pieces could be mistaken for hobbyist pieces but are not. There may be folks out there collecting only Flambeau signed Rene or only Flambeau signed Levy. If nothing else it would keep collections from growing overwhelming, but to date I haven&#039;t come across these collectors. </p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, things continued happily until labor shortages and increased wages caused entirely hand painted pieces to become unprofitable for the companies. At this point hybrid decorating techniques took over. It was still thought that pieces signed by individual artists was more valuable so that practiced was continued. not only by French companies but by German companies as well. In this era (post WWI) you&#039;ll see pieces using stencils and air brushing. Paint strokes were added over the top of the decorations to make them look hand decorated and then signed. </p><p><br /></p><p>This is the long way around to saying I think your piece may be one of those hybrid decorated pieces signed by an anonymous artist. The style seems consistent with depression era porcelain. The background looks to me like it may have been at least partly airbrushed and the blank spots in your decoration would indicated where a stencil failed to adhere properly. The blemish you see is a defect in the porcelain which I would expect to see better covered in paint if it was indeed completely hand painted. </p><p><br /></p><p>Your platter might have been a short lived experiment that Madesclaire considered when looking for new markets. Or it might have been a rare example of Madesclaire that escaped into the whiteware market and was picked up by an unnamed decorating company. I don&#039;t believe the platter is hobbyist decorated. There seem to be too many techniques used that a hobbyist might not have all the equipment for. Unfortunately, until more records come to light I&#039;m not sure your questions can be answered with any certainty.</p><p><br /></p><p>I hope my response helps and I&#039;m sorry if it seems a bit disjointed. My thoughts get a bit jumbled sometimes and the remnants of a head cold aren&#039;t helping. I certainly don&#039;t claim any definitive answers here. They are just the thoughts of a long time collector.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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