A 15.3m2 / 165 sq ft Boucquey & Winckelmans floor c.1900-1914

This antique French ceramic floor is a fusion of geometry and grace crafted by Boucquey & Winckelmans. Its origins echo the golden twilight of La Belle Époque, a time when design dared to be both ornate and structured, mirroring the aspirations of a society on the cusp of modernity.

This particular floor, totalling 15.3m2 / 165 sq ft, carries more than just a footprint—it bears the imprint of history. Each highly fired 15cm / 5.9 inch tile tells a story in muted tones: anchored in a burgundy and mid grey slip, the palette feels like a conversation between English Victorian rigour and French warmth.

The design itself is a study in contrasts and layout flexibility. The central field tile is bold and rhythmic, its geometries confidently measured yet softened by the organic freedom of the accompanying same size border tile, which curls and weaves to frame the floor. The versatility of the border layout—whether framing the floor as a single tile or more ornately mirrored as a double back-to-back lay—speaks to a timeless adaptability of design. In the gallery we have shown the two ways in which the principal field tile can be laid and also the border tiles as a single or double frame.

Carefully restored, the floor retains evidence of its age and its handmade soul; variations in tone, the occasional groubtable edge nibbles or small chip on a few tiles but on an antique floor subtle inconsistencies are not flaws but signatures—echoes of the craftspeople who shaped it over a century ago. Though we cannot precisely date it, the pages from the Boucquey & Winckelmans catalogue situate it as having been produced between the start of the 20th century and the Great War, in a period when beauty still moved at the pace of hands, not machines.

That Winckelmans continues to trade today, still family-owned since its 1894 founding and still rooted at its original site in Lomme, Northern France, feels almost like a defiance of time given some of the seismic global disruptions over such a period. In this floor, we glimpse their legacy—an heirloom of quality ceramic work that has resisted erosion by time and fashion and it stands as more than mere surface—it is narrative, nostalgia, and noble endurance.

A link to the Winckelmans website, offering more of their history, can be found here

Tile quantities, give or take one or two:-

FIELD tiles - 550 tiles - 12.4m2 /  133.5 sq ft

BORDER tiles - 120 tiles* plus 4 internal and 4 external corners -  2.9m2 / 9.5 sq ft or 19.2 linear metres / 63 linear feet*

** Halve the linear lengths for a back to back lay of the borders, as shown in the photographs