The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

Cane Handle (Poignée de canne)

c.1700–1720
made by

Saint Cloud Porcelain Factory

(French)
France, Saint Cloud, early 18th Century
soft-paste porcelain with underglaze blue decoration
Overall: 5.4 cm (2 1/8 in.)
The Norweb Collection 1964.510
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Canes, or sticks, were popular fashion accessories for aristocratic men, women, and children in 18th-century France.

Description

With its ribbing and underglaze blue decoration in the form of draping blue garlands, this porcelain handle was likely among the first to have been produced at the Saint-Cloud Porcelain Factory. Though Saint-Cloud may have been the first to produce porcelain cane handles as fashionable accessories, their popularity meant that they were soon produced at a variety of other French factories during the first half of the 1700s.
  • R. Henry Norweb, Cleveland, Ohio.
  • "Year in Review." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 52 (November 1965). p. 153, no. 49, ill. p. 133
    Dike, Catherine, and Guy Bezzaz. La Canne, objet d'art. Geneva: Les Édition de l'Amateur, 1988. p. 234-35
    Rondot, Bertrand. Discovering the Secrets of Soft-Paste Porcelain at the Saint-Cloud Manufactory, Ca. 1690-1766. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. p. 294
  • Exhib.: CMA 1965: "Year in Review 1965." Bull., LII (Nov. 1965
    Year in Review: 1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 27-November 14, 1965).
  • {{cite web|title=Cane Handle (Poignée de canne)|url=false|author=Saint Cloud Porcelain Factory|year=c.1700–1720|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1964.510