[Charles Bozonnet]. Livret d’Ouvrier-Compagnon, etc. Département de l’Ain. Arrondissement de « Bourg ». Commune de « Bourg ». Bourg, Bottier, 1825. Little in-4°. 8 pp. printed, followed by 16 unnumbered handwritten leaves bearing stamps (2 leaves remain blank). Contemporary mute ivory-coloured vellum.
A booklet which workers employed as journeymen or apprentices were required to be issued with, in accordance with the Law of 1 December 1803.
This booklet is issued to Charles Bozonnet, a potter and turner, aged 17½, working for Mr Girard, a pottery manufacturer. With certificates from his different masters: Michel Bozonnet, his father, a potter, and Giraud in Bourg, 1829–1830, in Saint-Jean-des-Vignes, near Châlons-sur-Saône, in 1831, Compte, in Cosme, 5 June 1832, again with his father in 1833–1834, again at Compte in 1835, then Capedanier, « fabricant de fayence à Ivry près de Paris », 1835-1836.
Several pages follow, detailing the sums received, including one that has been crossed out, notably in 1838,
others, his cars of clay, accounts and various notes, including the recipe for ‘Jaune’ : « 20 livre alquifoux, 4 livre d’ocre moitié rouge et moitié jaune, 2 onces antimoine, 3 livre terre choisy ». Alquifoux is a natural lead sulphide used in pottery to create a waterproof glaze — known as a ‘couverte’ — with a glassy appearance on the exterior of the piece.
Charles Bozonnet is quoted by Alexandre Dumas in his autobiographical work Causeries, published in 1857, Chapter VIII : « Une fabrique de vases étrusques à Bourg-en-Bresse ». Whilst passing through the city, Dumas writes, he met Bozonnet, a potter who molded Etruscan vases,« ‘pots of a charming colour and perfect shape’; this calling had come to him whilst reading Ascanio, inspired by Benvenuto Cellini and the vases in the Besançon Museum. Dumas commissioned him to make ‘three pots of the purest form my memory could provide […] A month later, I had my three vases, plus a carafe, a glass, a table toad, and a snake thrown in for good measure. The gift accompanied the order. Now, dear readers, the vases are truly beautiful in reality, with a rounded, antique shape; so much so that everyone who sees them in my studio asks me which museum I bought them from, and how much they cost. To which I reply: ‘I bought them at Charles Bozonnet’s museum, 84 Rue Saint-Nicolas, in Bourg-en-Bresse, and they cost me fifteen francs.’
Brown stain; a small tear at the bottom edge of a leaf; a page appears to have been torn out.
A valuable apprenticeship booklet.
1 500€