A most unusual and unique Maubeuge ceramic c.15m2 / 161 sq ft.

A most unusual find: a French ceramic floor of 14.2cm / 5.6 inch square tiles, totalling 15m2 / 161 sq ft., with their same size borders. The floor was manufactured by Compagnie Francaise de Mosaique Ceramique du Maubeuge Usine de Landrecies. For provenance, we include a scan of the tiles from the original catalogue in our possession, and we would date the floor to the decades of the 1920 and 1930's.

These tiles present a dramatic departure from the structured, geometric traditions of earlier ceramic tile floors, offering instead a mottled or camouflage-like abstract design, composed of irregular organic shapes in muted tones of teal, cream, pale blue, grey and black. The pattern creates a kind of all-over texture, resembling a natural surface like lichen, cracked stone, or even the abstraction of foliage or undergrowth.

The visual effect is one of intentional randomness, yet the tiles are also identical. The abstraction appears continuous and immersive, especially when seen from a distance, where the pattern masks the lines between the individual tiles. At the bottom of a selection of photographs in the gallery, there is a distinctive same-sized border tile, with a looser-flowing design of blue-green and tan waves or tendrils set against a black background, enhancing the organic theme of the floor.

Historically, this type of pattern is a late evolution in tile design, most likely from the 1920s to 1930s, when more abstract and expressionistic motifs began to emerge, influenced by Art Deco, Cubism, and early modernist aesthetics. This was a time when designers began to embrace asymmetry, texture, and abstraction as legitimate alternatives to classical ornament and geometric rigor, a move away from the more rigid templates of 19th-century manufacturing. Instead of a central rosette or repeated star, the pattern here might have been created by combining freeform stencils, or even by hand-placing pigments during the mould-filling stage to produce a deliberately “random” surface. This aligns with broader artistic trends of the interwar years, particularly in Catalonia, southern France, and northern Italy, where tile makers started pushing stylistic boundaries.

These floors were often found in stylish urban apartments, studio spaces, or modernist villas, where the desire for something bold and contemporary outweighed the need for symmetry. The border, with its undulating lines and almost oceanic movement, further supports the idea that this floor was designed with a naturalistic abstraction in mind—perhaps mimicking waves, plants, or even animal camouflage.

Highly fired, the tiles can be laid inside or outside the home and, given the palette and design, could provide a unique and practical statement in a conservatory, patio or summer house linking home to garden.

Tile quantities, give or take one or two:-

FIELD tiles - 660 tiles - 13.3m2 / 143 sq ft.

BORDER tiles - 90 tiles - 1.8m2 / 19.4 sq ft. or 12.8 linear metres / 41.9 linear feet