1920? 8½" cream-colored plate with a blue-green colored design depicting WL. The plate reads "Fables de LaFontaine" and "Le Loup et l'Agneau." The smudged back stamp reads "Porcelaine opaque de Gien." $25 through an unknown source prior to 2007.
The block lettering is typical of Gien work. The wolf is looking up and even seeming to look beyond the offending lamb. It is hard to know whether this is a normal plate that a clever person has made into a wall decoration -- or whether Gien did the piercing of the glass back of the plate. As I say of the larger colored plate of TT done by Gien, it was apparently made from the start to adorn a wall rather than a table.
1920? 7 7/8" cream-colored plate with colored design and raised edges depicting the fall of TT. The plate reads "Fables de LaFontaine 12" and "La Tortue et les Deux Canards." The back reads "Porcelaine opaque de Gien." $25 through Myrtice Stratton and Ebay, April, '99.
A charming plate. It depicts the fall just after the tortoise has let go of the stick. The countryside is beautifully pictured, though the seller found it somewhat discolored with age. There is a string through two holes in the bottom rim of the plate. Apparently it was made from the start to adorn a wall rather than a table. Click on the image to see an enlarged version.
2000? Gien Fables Mug Fox And Stork. Faience. Fait main. Made in France. $35 from jdwyl0 through Ebay, Oct., '21.
Here is yet another approach to fable illustration by Gien.
2000? Gien Fables Salad Plate. Fox and Crow. Faience. Fait main. Made in France. F. Balducci. 8.5". $40 from kara_kat through Ebay, March, '25.
Again, I am impressed with the distinctive style and coloring. Here the anthropomorphized fox waits with open hand while the crow sings on. The fox wears sporty trousers.
2000? Gien Fables Dessert or Salad Plate. Fox and Stork. Faience. Fait main. Made in France. Unknown source.
What a distinctive style! Here the fox is particularly well done, especially in his pose and facial expression. I have seen four such plates illustrating fables on the web, as well as other tableware items in the Gien Fable series. I would love to include more of them in the collection!
1920? Eight cream-colored plates with colored designs. Each plate reads "Fables de LaFontaine" at its top, with the individual fable title at the bottom. Each back reads "Porcelaine opaque de Gien." €200 from entrepot*d on Ebay, Jan., '21.
I was sure that we had some of the plates in this series; it turns out that we have plates from at least four other series, but not from this series. We have a similar but smaller plate for hanging depicting TT. I picked up from the kind seller that the plates have numbers, though I could not find them at first on the plates themselves. We have, from what seems to be a set of 12:
#3: "Crow and Eagle"
#4: BF
#5: "Fox and Goat in a Well"
#7: FC
#8: FK
#9: OF
#10: "Rabbits and Frogs"
#11: WL
Ebay.fr has revealed to me that #6 is CJ. From our other holdings, it seems that TT is #12. The other two (#1 and #2) seem to be FS and BC.
1920? Eight cream-colored plate with colored designs. Each plate reads "Fables de LaFontaine" at its top, with the individual fable title at the bottom. Each back reads "Porcelaine opaque de Gien." €200 from entrepot*d on Ebay, Jan., '21.
I was sure that we had some of the plates in this series; it turns out that we have plates from at least four other series, but not from this series. We have a similar but smaller plate for hanging depicting TT. I picked up from the kind seller that the plates have numbers, though I could not find them on the plates themselves. We have, from what seems to be a set of 12:
#3: "Crow and Eagle"
#4: BF
#5: "Fox and Goat in a Well"
#7: FC
#8: FK
#9: OF
#10: "Rabbits and Frogs"
#11: WL
Ebay.fr has revealed to me that #6 is CJ. From our other holdings, it seems that TT is #12. The other two seem to be FS and BC.
1990? Boxed set of six dessert plates "Fables de la Fontaine." On the back of each plate is "Musée de la Faiencerie de Gien." Gien: France. $90 for the set from Eric Zimmermann, Quebec, Canada, Nov., '00. One extra exemplar of "Le Renard et la Cicogne" for $9.99 from the same source through Ebay, Nov., '00.
This lovely set combines busy central images with a uniform "leaf, grape, and vine" decoration around each plate's border. They choose well when they put FC on the cover of the box. My second prize goes to "The Crow Trying to Imitate an Eagle." In both of these, the open spaces make reading the plate's central image easier and more enjoyable.
1929 "Les Fables de Gibbs." Signed "Erel." 11¾ x 15¾". GA (Feb. 9), WL (Feb. 25), and MM (May 4).
Clever parodies of La Fontaine. "Le Chat et l'Oiseau" is a parody of WL: whatever explanations the little bird makes, the cat will eat the bird. GA is composed in particularly idiomatic slang verse, but I think it comes to something like this: a rogue having knocked about all summer comes to an old haunt and asks for a few rounds, offering only a brush in payment. The innkeeper asks what he did all summer and then responds that he can brush now. A barber snoozes and dreams that he has established a high-class shop in Paris and makes lots of money. He is awakened to give a local a shave. As La Fontaine wrote, we all construct castles in Spain. The mountain brings forth a little tube that later becomes famous worldwide.
2010 Get Fuzzy. Darby Conley. UFS. Unknown venue. Unknown source.
I apologize to viewers and readers. “Fable” gets used so broadly that I often do not know whether I should include materials that I think do not pertain to this collection. Sometimes I decide to err on the side of caution before I hand the object on elsewhere. The malaprop here is, I believe, a real groaner, far fetched and not worth the fetching.
1900? A metal coin slightly over 1" in diameter showing the fox and the crow on one side and German verse on the other.
The verse reads "Wann Dein Spiel der Gegner preiset,/ Dann gieb doppelt auf Dich Acht,/ Und erinn're Dich des Raben,/ Den zuletzt der Fuchs verlacht." That is, "When your opponent praises your play, pay doubly close attention to yourself and remember the crow, on whom the fox had the last laugh." I am tempted--but afraid--to clean and polish up this old coin. Who knows what circumstances ever gave rise to the distributing of a coin like this!
1920? Coordinated set of nine tin tableware implements. German? $80 from Claudia and Waltraud Pressler, Ellhofen, Germany, Sept., '01.
There is even a strainer to hang on the wall rack. The set, with a grey background, features three motifs in red-and-black coloring:
TH: The hare reads the paper while the tortoise trudges by.
FC: The crow in a tree holds a large cheese suspended above the fox's mouth.
FS: The fox raises a paw to a tall bottle in which the stork has his beak.
