Grand plat creux

The memory of violence

Cthis hollowware, produced in the early 20th century, was discovered in an industrial area of Niort. It comes from the Gautier faience factory, whose production was intended for local and tourist customers. It shows the Battle of Hastings, a decisive event in the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and more specifically the death of the brothers of Harold (the last Anglo-Saxon king of England) as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. If the context of the tapestry's conception remains mysterious, the work shows the permanent importance of the warlike gesture in the writing of History. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the first museum of the Bayeux Tapestry opened, the masterpiece thus already enjoyed international fame, which was confirmed by the presence of the motif in this earthenware produced some 400 km from the original work...