Crisp colours on an antique French Douvrin floor c.16m2 / 173 sq ft.

A reclaimed and now fully restored antique French ceramic floor manufactured in the early part of the 20th century and totalling c.16.5m2 / 177 sq ft.

The principal field tiles and same size borders are 14cm / 5.5 inch sq and there are 750 field tiles and 100 large borders, offering a lay length for the borders of 14 linear metres / 46 linear ft. Two individual field tiles form the interlinking motifs, opening up across a four tile tessellation, and the floor is framed beautifully by a lozenge themed same -size border tile where the large lozenge is formed by two tiles laying side by side.

The floor appears in the 1925 Compagnie Generale de Construction de Fours, Ceramique de Douvrin catalogue and we show scans of the tiles presentation in the photo gallery.

The floor has cleaned superbly; there are small chips and edge nibbles, all groutable, on a small number of tiles but the colours are vibrant and consistent and the 15mm / 0.6 inch thick ceramic is of excellent quality.

Being a highly fired tile they can be laid inside or outside of the home.

NOTE Antique tiles were most commonly made in single or two tile moulds. Before current computer automation methods their moulds were made by hand and the colour slips mixed by eye. Kiln temperatures could also be variable, as could the firing time. The result is that often tiles display subtle size and thickness variations and there can be tonal variations in colours, owing to the slip mixing and/or firing time. All of this makes these handmade tiles unique and adds to their charm. Some floors display their subtle variations in size and tones, some not, but when photographing we always take a random section of the floor so that it is representative of the whole. A tiler should always dry lay a section of the tiles to familiarise himself with them before starting to fix lay.