19th-century ceramic milk jug from Maiten, France (Keram carafe 18)

Vintage ceramic milk jug from Maiten, France. Perfect condition. Made of particularly durable, hard clay with a glaze. Height: 14 cm. Diameter: 10 cm; width including the handle: 14 cm. Capacity: 500 ml. Perfect condition; the vessel is like new. Judging by its shape, it dates to the 19th century. The jug looks wonderful, and the material is truly very high quality, as the vessel has no damage or chips. Very beautiful transitions in the glaze colours. The glaze has no crackle effect.

Pont-des-Vernes sandstone was the raw material for the pottery factory in Pouilloux (Saône-et-Loire), which operated from 1818 to 1957. The factory produced utilitarian ceramic items: hot-water bottles, ceramic bottles with caps, hygiene, medical or sanitary containers, and a wide variety of liqueur jugs and household pitchers with blue and white glaze. At the same time, its range of decorative ceramics was also distributed under the brands Pont-des-Vernes, PL (Paul Langeron) and Maïtena.

A little history: the Pont-des-Vernes factory had two distinct sites: the so-called Haut factory, founded around 1818, and the so-called Bas factory, founded later, probably around 1826.
As early as 1784, public works contractor Pierre Langeron, while excavating the Canal du Centre near Pouilloux, noted the richness of the subsoil and, in particular, the quality and plasticity of the local white clay. Pierre Langeron began ceramic production in the 1820s, using deposits discovered a few years earlier.
The Langeron family took over the two Pont-des-Vernes sites around 1860/1870 under the company name Société Anonyme des Etablissements Paul Langeron. The site had two kilns in the 1850s, seven in 1885 and nine in 1920, and produced fine ceramic ware stamped PL for Paul Langeron.
In 1922, casting and calibration workshops were established at the Langeron factory, and they continued to expand until the Second World War.
The factory closed its doors in 1957.