Raoul Lachenal French, 1885-1956

The son of Edmond Lachenal, Raoul Lachenal worked in his father's studio until 1911, when he established a new workshop at Boulogne-sur-Seine. While some of Raoul's Art Nouveau ceramics resemble his father's organically formed and inventively glazed work, he was accomplished in his own right as a designer and artisan. After exhibiting his Art Nouveau stoneware for the first time at Paris salons in 1904, he adopted an additional decorative mode: incising geometrical designs on stoneware and filling the sections with vividly contrasting slips. Toward the end of his career, Lachenal added porcelain to his repertoire, using deep black and salmon pink as grounds for white ornamentation.