Jeanine’s interest in, and knowledge of French pottery grew over the years as she bought and sold it at the shows and on e-bay.   She was mostly dealing in Quimper, as that was a hot ticket item at that time, but she was interested in all the pottery producing regions of France.

In our Quebec travels  she learned of a French pottery that was made specifically for the Quebec market with Quebec themes , marked on the bottom – C A.  It was quite possibly brought over for the 300^th anniversary of Quebec in 1908, and most likely made by Alcide Chaumeil who operated out of Paris, but the jury is still out.  Many pieces include crests and mottos such as “Je me Souviens”, and some even have representations of the “Golden Dog” which is a very popular image in Quebec.

The golden dog is an image of a yellow dog lying down with a bone in it’s paws. The verse under the picture is as follows  “Je Suis un chien qui ronge lo.  En le roneant je prend mon repos. Un tems viendra qui n’est ps venu, que je mordray qui m’aura mordu.”  In English, “I am a dog who chews the bone.  While chewing I take my rest. A time will come which is not yet come, when I will bite the one who has bitten me.”

You can see the original plaque today over the main door of the Quebec General Post Office.  It had been moved there when it’s original residence was torn down. This was the 1736 residence of a  Dr. Roussell.  There are plenty of theories, the most popular being that it is likely referring to disputes and threats of revenge between the doctor and certain town officials, but you can see why it has a certain resonance with all Quebecers. In fact the original statue of the golden dog, circa 1650,  resides in Penzenas in southern France on the garden gate of a M. Delbousquet’s estate. It turns out Roussell originally came from this area, and probably he duplicated it as best he could recall as a simple remembrance of his native land.  This might explain why the words on the Canadian plaque are somewhat different than the original. It is most likely is a case of poor memory.

The factory also produced decorative items featuring emblems of the royal chateaus of the Loire valley for the tourist trade, and busts of royal figures, etc.

Years passed and in spite of our constant search, we found only a couple of C A pieces, and they were not of the Quebec theme.  We started to think that we would only see them in pictures.  Then one day we got a lead from a fellow dealer.  He knew of a lady in Kingston who had several pieces of the Quebec themed CA pottery she wanted to sell, and he was only interested in her Canadiana.  Great lead.  As it happened we would be going through Kingston in a couple of weeks, on our way to do the Eastman Quebec show, and wouldn’t it be great to turn up at one of Quebec’s premier shows with some extremely rare Quebec themed pottery. 

We made the call, and the very gracious lady on the other end of the line said she would be happy to accommodate us.  She sounded interesting. Her name was “Bunny”.  We arrived at her place on time and went straight into the dining room where, sure enough, the table was covered with several pieces of C A pottery.  Large serving bowls and plates with emblems and crests, salad servers, and there among them a plate with the famous “Golden Dog”.  There was also a nice little selection of Quimper and other French pottery, but of course our eyes were stuck on the golden dog.  “So Bunny it works best if you can just tell us if you have a figure in mind, and we will see if we can agree.”  Bunny thought for a couple of minutes and explained that she had bought most of the pieces years ago for not much money, but that she watches the Antiques Road Show so she knows these things have gone up, and then she hit Jeanine with what she thought was a big figure.  Jeanine knew she was low because she was unaware of the extra value of the rare pieces so she “talked her up” by $500.   Bunny was delighted, and we were happy because we would do well, and hadn’t stolen from her.  We went on to sell the entire collection within 15 minutes of the show opening to a collector who was over the top happy to have it.  Happy ending all around.

some of the C A pottery we brought to the Eastman, Quebec show