About Porcelaine de Paris

Founded 1773 by Jean-baptiste Locre, Porcelaine de Paris, was one of the first manufactures to use the Chinese secret of porcelain. It immediately aimed for the luxury trade, selling to the Royal Courts of Europe.
But even then, a part of its production was utilitarian: such as wine coolers, fruit baskets, vases etc.

A vase from Locre ca 1785	Locre trade-mark 1773	Glass cooler ca 1785

After surviving the French Revolution, Porcelaine de Paris steadily produced tableware as well as purely decorative pieces, vases, boxes etc, receiving orders from all over Europe. Its vitality was unbelievable, creating one new model every day over 30 years!
Around 1830, most of the factories responsible for the glory of porcelain in Paris, closed. However the tradition could not disapper, and new talented men arrived. Among them was Jean-Marx Clauss, a german-born potter who bought a building Rue de la Pierre-Levee, where he took over Locre's activity. "Porcelaine de Paris" stayed at this address until recently.

Then, M. Achille Bloch run the factory from 1887, until 1914. It is during that period that Porcelaine de paris created 9500 new items. His son Robert will take the direction of the factory after World War I and transferred a part of the activity to a new factory located 200 miles South of Paris. The decorating studios stayed in Paris, rue de la Pierre-Levee. Robert Bloch was helped by his wife who was a talented painter who worked with Rob mallet-Stevens. The name "Porcelaine de Paris" associated with the Locre's blue arrows, appeared at that period.

World War II started in 1939. Robert Bloch went to New York with his family. There, he opened the "Blue Arrows Decorating Workshop" on West Third Street. His partner, Paul Molho went to Madrid. And both joined force again in 1945 to bring the old factory of rue de la pierre-Levee back to life.
In 1949, transfers started to be applied to allow a larger and less expensive production. And from that new technique came the idea to decorate sanitaryware, from thee toothbrush glass to the pedestal basins. An overwheiming favorable response followed.
In the 1980s, Patrick Molho, and Michel Bloit, sons of Paul Molho and Robert Bloch became the heads of the company until very recently.

After disappearing from the American market for several years, Porcelaine de Paris is now back, presenting its bath collection of new decors as well as older, classic ones.

It keeps up with the pace of luxury, even in utilitarian products consistently with its policy. We will bring

About Alma International
We are French, and started that American Company in 1997, to import French products to the US. Our relationship with Porcelaine de Paris is a long story, since Josette Andre started to sell Porcelaine de Paris in her decoration boutique in France at the beginning of the 1970s.

At the same time, her husband, Martial Andre, sold the sanitaryware in his own company.
When we came to the US to develop that new company, Alma international, we had stopped to work with Porcelaine de Paris for a while. But one day, in 2005, thinking about what kind of products we could import, we realized that Porcelaine de Paris was absent from the American market.

We established a contact with Patrick Molho at the end of 2005, and then, when new owners bought Porcelaine de Paris, at the beginning of 2006, we really started to promote these exceptional products in the US, and we are ready to share our enthousism and knowledge of these products, with you.