The
ivory carvers of Dieppe in France long enjoyed an altogether special
reputation. During the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries
the art was cultivated here with pronounced success, its practice being
in many cases handed down from father to son, but the prosperity of the
ivory carvers gradually declined toward the close of the eighteenth
century. The financial distress immediately preceding the French
Revolution, and the disturbance of all industrial enterprises caused by
that terrible political upheaval, had much to do with this; added
causes are alleged to have been the production of so many beautiful
objects in porcelain, and the introduction into France of the quaint
Chinese ivories, which caught the popular fancy and were preferred to
the formal and traditional art of the Dieppe carvers. Indeed it must be
confessed that the art here had become too mechanical, a mere copying
and reproducing of the older models, which when first produced could
lay claim to no small share of originality. By the early part of the
nineteenth century the lowest point had been reached, and the few ivory
carvers who still exercised their art in Dieppe found it difficult to
dispose of their product. Now, however, a change occurred, English
tourists began to frequent the country, and what had lost its charm for
the French appears to have appealed to their taste; they bought freely
and paid well. This revival was quite rapid, so that by 1832 much of
the lost ground had been recovered. At this time the three best ivory
carvers, who had their establishments in the Grand 'Rue of the city,
were MM. Bland, Flammand, and Thomas. Among other quaint forms of
carving practised here at this time were the magic balls, so favoured
by the Chinese, as many as twelve, one within the other, and entirely
separated from each other, being carved out of a single sphere of
ivory.*
*Vitel, "Histoire de Dieppe," Paris, 1844, pp. 341-343.
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