on white, with darker manganese outlines; there are a handful that are plain, or use two colours. The new Rouen soft-paste porcelain material appears to have been invented by Louis' father Edme. At this time imports of both Chinese export porcelain and its Japanese equivalent had reached high levels, and governments and potters across Europe were very keen to develop their own industry, a goal not properly fulfilled until Meissen porcelain was developed many decades later. Characteristics and key pieces Rouen produced the first soft-paste porcelain in France, but only nine surviving soft-paste pieces are now generally attributed to Rouen, with a possible tenth. Many other claimants have been reassigned to Saint-Cloud porcelain, which is often very similar. None are marked, and an important piece of evidence is the coat-of-arms of the Norman lawyer Asselin de Villequiers on the mustard pot (illustrated below), now in the Sèvres museum. His arms are also found on Rouen faience. All are (like Chinese blue and white porcelain) decorated with underglaze painting using cobalt blue; the blue is often a very deep colour. In most the tone of the "white" glazed body tends to a grey green, and five of the nine have distinctive areas of blue stippling, including the mustard pot and the New York pot pourri jar illustrated here. Both also share the "organization of the painted decoration within shaped panels", which is found on two of the other pieces. There is another pot pourri jar on the same model as the New York one; this draws from contemporary styles in silver. There are no recorded dates for production, the royal patent of 1673 being taken as the earliest possible date; it is assumed Rouen porcelain production ceased after the death of Louis Poterat in 1696. The porcelain at Rouen became known as "Porcelaine française". These events followed the creation of the French East India Company in 1664, and the influx of Chinese wares it generated. The Rouen paste was very light, lighter than any other French make except Sèvres porcelain, and clearly less amber than Saint-Cloud porcelain. In contrast with Saint-Cloud, Rouen porcelain was only produced on a small scale and failed to be commercially viable. When the next royal patent for porcelain was granted, in 1702 to the owners of Saint-Cloud porcelain, the grant noted that the Rouen factory "did nothing more than approach the secret, and never brought it