Jean Roger Paris

Jean Roger Paris
Paris, France

At fifteen, Jean Roger spent his first wage on a Renaissance table. It tells you most of what you need to know about him.

He came from Lot-et-Garonne, arrived in Paris in 1947 and opened his workshop the year after, a young potter with an instinct for the bold and the unexpected. By the early 1950s he was designing his own pieces, palm trees and pineapples and artichokes and tulips. In 1955 he made a pineapple on a pot for Christian Dior's first boutique on Avenue Montaigne, and Jackie Kennedy bought from him too.

The vocabulary he set out then, animals and exotic fruits, forms that sit somewhere between functional object and decorative sculpture, is still the house signature three generations on.

The frog came later. An American decorator asked for one and he went back to an eighteenth-century Chinese Kangxi model. That was the early 1960s, and it's still the piece the workshop is known for.

His son Jean-Jacques joined him in 1968, after studying at the École du Louvre, and went on to add the trompe-l'oeil finishes the workshop is also known for. The atelier now sits by Place des Vosges. Jean-Jacques ran it until 2007, and today François Roger, the founder's grandson, runs it with his sister Marguerite. He had been a sommelier. He learned the craft from both his grandfather and his father, and trained in modelling, turning, sculpture and drawing.

He has added his own contribution too, a special enamel perfected over years. The formula is a closely guarded secret, and it gives the pieces an unusual depth and luminosity. Every piece is still handmade in their Paris atelier, so no two come out quite the same.

There is a particular kind of French decorative object that manages to be serious and playful at the same time, deeply referential to art history and completely unafraid of wit. Jean Roger makes exactly that. The frogs, the artichokes, the flamme bowls hold their own in any room without demanding it.

We have the minis, about 6.5cm long and sold as a pair. Use them as salt and pepper cellars, for rings by the bed, or just on a shelf looking pleased with themselves. The larger size holds a tea light.

We carry Jean Roger because a home should have at least one thing that makes you smile every time you see it.

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