Limoges marks: how to tell who made and who decorated your porcelain

Limoges is a city, not a company: dozens of factories there made porcelain, and many pieces carry two marks. The porcelain maker's mark was usually applied to the white ware under the glaze, often in green, while a decorating firm added its own mark over the glaze after painting. Reading both tells you who made the blank and who decorated it, and sometimes that the decoration was done outside France.

By the Antique ID team · Updated 2026-10-13

Have a piece like this? Scan it with Antique ID for an instant identification and an estimated value. App Store →

Limoges is a place, not a maker

Porcelain came to Limoges because of its raw material. According to the official specification for the Porcelaine de Limoges geographical indication, a deposit of exceptionally pure kaolin was discovered at Saint-Yrieix, south-west of Limoges, in 1768, and the first porcelain was made there in 1771. The European Route of Industrial Heritage notes that the number of factories rose from 15 in 1827 to more than 30 by 1850. Each factory had its own marks, and independent decorating workshops added theirs. “Limoges” on a base therefore narrows the place, not the maker.

How to read the two marks

Making and decorating porcelain are separate steps. The specification describes two stages, “fabrication du blanc” (making the white ware) and decoration, and notes that some firms only decorate. In practice that often produced two marks:

• The factory (white ware) mark was applied to the undecorated porcelain before the glaze firing, so it sits under the glaze. It is often green, as in the museum example below.
• The decorator's mark was added with the painting or printing and fired at a lower temperature over the glaze, often in red, blue, brown or gold, sometimes with the decorating firm's name and city.

A vase of 1878 in the V&A by the Limoges firm Gibus & Redon shows the pattern: it carries an MR monogram printed in green and “M.Redon Limoges” within a circle printed in red. If the two marks name different firms, the piece was made by one and decorated by the other.

Haviland

The best-known Limoges name has American roots. Haviland's own history says David Haviland founded an earthenware and porcelain import business in New York in 1838, settled in Limoges in 1842 and set up his own manufacture to control the whole process, from paste to decoration. The firm opened an artists' studio at Auteuil in 1872 under the engraver Félix Bracquemond. Haviland marks name the firm directly, usually as Haviland & Co. or, for a separate family business, Theodore Haviland, often with Limoges and France. Because Haviland both made and decorated, its pieces can carry a Haviland white-ware mark and a Haviland decoration mark.

Country words and other wording

American-decorated Limoges

A great deal of Limoges white ware was exported undecorated and painted elsewhere, by professional studios and by amateur china painters. Pickard China of Chicago, for example, says its artists hand-painted imported white china stock in its Chicago building for decades before the company developed its own china body in the 1930s. On such pieces you will typically see a French factory mark under the glaze and an American decorator's mark or a painter's signature over it. These pieces are genuine Limoges porcelain, but the decoration is not French, and the quality ranges from professional to beginner.

Misleading marks and reproductions

Limoges producers have fought misuse of the name for more than a century. The geographical-indication specification records a 1910 commercial court ruling at Bourges that banned the word Limoges as a mark on porcelain made elsewhere, later decisions in 1962 and 1983, and an American earthenware maker in Ohio that marked its products “Limoges China” before the First World War. Since 2017 the name Porcelaine de Limoges has been protected as a geographical indication, and the specification requires the stamp to be accompanied by the maker's name or mark. Warning signs include:

• “Limoges” with no maker's name or initials at all;
• an overglaze-only mark on a piece that looks factory-decorated;
• a heavy earthenware or stoneware body instead of thin, translucent porcelain (hold it up to a light);
• printed decoration sold as hand painted.

What drives value

The factory and decorator, the quality and originality of the painting, the size and completeness of a set, and condition (wear to gilding, chips, crazing) matter more than the word Limoges itself. Signed work by known decorating studios, and pieces from celebrated firms and periods, attract the most interest.

Next steps

Photograph both marks clearly, then scan the piece with Antique ID for an identification and an estimated value. An estimate is not an appraisal; for a full service or an exceptional piece, ask a porcelain specialist. French readers can use marques porcelaine de Limoges.

Identify your antique in seconds

Antique ID identifies an item from a photo, reads visible maker's marks, suggests a period and gives an estimated value range, so you know whether it deserves a closer look.