Pair of Renaissance style Montereau faience chargers

The chargers are circular in shape and set within a square shaped ebonised wood frame which has been carved at the corners with scrolling foliate motifs. Each plate depicts a noble woman in Renaissance style clothing on a white ground, and one of the chargers bears the signature 'Poitevin'. It is unclear who exactly this refers to, but Eugene Poitevin was a painter of porcelain working for the Sevres manufactory in the late 19th Century. The chargers are impressed to the reverse with the mark for 'Montereau B & Cie.' and are numbered '30'.

Creil-Montereau faience is a type of fine, white ground earthenware which originates in the French regions of Creil, Oise, Montereau, and Seine-et-Marne. The first manufactory was established in the early 18th Century, but it was during the 19th Century that the local ceramics industry flourished.