Nicely decorated

This nicely decorated building is from 1858 and served as from 1861 as workshop for François Gillet, who obviously was the first to, in an industrial way, manufacture enamel paintings on lava. The workshop remained here until WWI. We are on rue Fénelon, close to the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church.

The facade is covered by illustrations, all in enamel on Volvic lava. Some of them tell you the history of ceramic painting as from ancient times until the end of the 19^th century. The last “detail” shows François Gillet together with the painter and lithographer Pierre-Jules Jolivet (1794-1871), who was an artist much involved in this type of decoration. When reaching a more industrial level, thanks to François Gillet, this became a popular and different way to create colourful outdoor weather-resisting decorations, replacing mosaics, tiles…

There are some specific illustrations of  Luca della Robbia (Florence, 1399-1482), known for his glazed terracotta works, Bernard Palissy (1510-90), known for having found out how to imitate Chinese porcelain and Ferdinand Morteleque (1774-1844), who managed the first enamel painting on lava (“lave de Volvic”) in 1824. (He is the one sitting in front of Gillet and Jolivet on the above "detail".) 

It’s interesting to see how different personalities from this period “met”. François Gillet took over the company from “Veuve Hachette”, in which Jacques Ignaz Hittorff (1792-1867) had been employed. Hittorff is known as the architect of a large number of buildings and places in Paris. He redesigned Place de la Concorde (see previous posts). Many of the buildings he created have disappeared, but we can still admire e.g. the “Cirque d’Hiver” (see previous post), “Gare du Nord” (see previous post) … and the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church (see previous post)… (I talked about all this in a post about Hittorff's tomb at the Montmartre cemetery (see previous post)).  

Hittorff was very much in favour of decorated, colourful, buildings. He had discovered that ancient buildings and churches often had their facades painted. When he was in charge of finishing the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church he imagined thus the front to be decorated and he gave the job to Pierre-Jules Jolivet, for the canvasses, and to François Gillet for the execution. So, a number of illustrations in enamel were placed there in 1861. However, there were a lot of protests against these colourful illustrations – also because of some nakedness, so they were quickly taken down. They were brought back as late as 2011 and can now be seen again. 

              

Here we can see part of the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church decorations and also the richly decorated facade of the home of Pierre-Jules Jolivet (see previous post).

This has nothing to do with the above, except the colourful facade of a building which unfortunately is too present in the last days’ news: Bataclan,. a construction from 1864, originally a café-billiard, then music-hall (Buffalo-Bill…), cinema… and now a multi-purpose concert hall (Prince, Stromae, Robbie Williams, Oasis…). The facade in a pagoda style was quite recently repainted - in 1984. I wrote about it on my blog here.

A square... with a lot of history.

Today, in the 10^th arrondissement, you can find a little open space, Square Alban-Satragne, named after a local town councilor.

However, so many other names and events are related to this place… With large surroundings this was previously referred to as the Clos de Saint-Lazare. (Before the creation of the arrondissements, Paris was divided in some 50 “clos” (enclosures).)

The Clos de Saint-Lazare was originally – 12^th century - occupied by a leper colony (“lazar house” – Saint Lazarus being the patron of the leprous). The Leprosy had to a large extent disappeared a few centuries later and the installations were offered to Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) in 1632 and it became the site for his “Congregation of the Mission”, founded in 1624 - the members of its different branches usually referred to as Vincentians, Lazarians… and for the “Daughters of Charity”, co-founded by Vincent and Louise de Marillac, both later sanctified.

I already posted about Vincent de Paul (see here) and the chapel where he’s buried and his head and hands have been sculptured.

Below we can compare a 17^th century map with what the area looks like today. Please notice the presence of a nearby church, Saint-Laurent. (I will revert to it below.)

Already in the days before the 14^th of July, 1789, the revolutionary forces plundered almost all of the buildings and in 1794, Saint Lazare became a prison, later combined with a hospital for prisoners and for “filles publiques” (prostitutes), in operation until 1927. Most of the buildings were demolished during the 1930’s. Here we can see what it once looked like during the 17^th century and later, when it was a prison. One building from the prison time remains, the chapel in red bricks, constructed in 1824. The architect was Louis-Pierre Baltard (the father of Victor Baltard, known for the Les Halles pavilions)…

… who also created some hospital buildings behind the chapel, rather recently restored and now housing a multimedia library and some local services. 

There are some other traces of the previous history, like the walls surrounding the prison.

During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, until the Revolution, the successors of Vincent and Louise continued the activities and several installations were made in the neighbourhood, including some buildings from the beginning of the 18^th century, which are still there – 99-105 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis. 

Again checking a map with a closer view…

… we can see the Saint-Laurent Church, with 15^th century origins, but of course modified later. The immediate vicinity with Vincent de Paul’s and Louise de Marillac’s activites are obvious, illustrated. Louise de Marillac was initially buried here. 

Quite close we can also find the Saint Vincent de Paul Church, more recent - from the 19^th century. We are still within the previous Saint-Lazare enclosure (see map above).  The references to Vincent de Paul and to Louise de Marillac are numerous.