ROUEN WARE.—A much better class of pottery both in manufacture and design is the famous Rouen ware, made in the town of that name in Normandy. In the year 1644 Edme Poterat obtained a licence to make and sell fayence in the province of Normandy. [Illustration: Fig. 55.—Tray, Rouen Ware. (S.K.M.)] This monopoly did not last long, for we find that in 1673 his son, Louis Poterat, obtained another licence, and from that time a new development takes place in the ornament that is so characteristic of Rouen ware. The greater part of this ornament is composed of a scallop form of setting out, with alternating compositions of ornamental flowers, called _lambrequins_, and baskets of ornamental flowers that repeat at intervals around the border of plates or trays; light pendentives and wreaths of artificial flowers are painted in a lighter tone, and occur between the richer lambrequins (Fig. 54). Richly ornamented coats-of-arms, or baskets of flowers and cornucopias, occupy the centres (Fig. 55). The beautiful plate in the Kensington Museum (Fig. 56) is unique in Rouen ware in having _amorini_, or cupids, in the centre. All of the foregoing examples are painted in blue of different shades on the white enamel, or sometimes on yellow ochre grounds. Indian red colour and a warm reddish yellow is sometimes also used. The ornament is pseudo-Chinese, and is a Norman development of Oriental forms with some Italian influences which are reminiscences of the decoration brought by the Conrade brothers from Genoa to Nevers. [Illustration: Fig. 56.—Plateau, Rouen Ware. (S.K.M.)] Some of the Rouen ware is decorated with a ray formation on which the ornament is painted on a light or dark ground. This is known as the _style rayonnant_. The drawing of these patterns is always very careful and correct, the latter often being copies of the printed decoration of the books of that period. Later on the decoration became of a freer type, with bouquets of artificial flowers, and in the eighteenth century the _Rocaille_ or Rococo element began to creep in, and the Rouen ware developed from the camaïen blue style of decoration to a polychrome style. [Illustration: Fig. 57.—Dish, Rouen Ware. (S.K.M.)] The Chinese element in design became everywhere in the ascendant, not only in late Rouen ware, but in the pottery of every country in Europe, and remains more or less in the work of to-day. Some of the late Rouen ware is not so bizarre in its decoration as many other French and European styles of the same period. Fig. 57 shows the Chinese influence, but is in better taste than the majority of contemporary designs.