About the making of Manufacture de Digoin
Every product from Manufacture de Digoin is made in the workshop on the Canal du Centre in Digoin – from the raw stoneware body to the finished, stamped jar. The process follows the same steps as in 1875, and most of them are still carried out by hand.
The stoneware body
The basis is grès de Bourgogne – a stoneware body the workshop mixes itself from clay and minerals of French origin, from Burgundy, Auvergne, Charente and Île-de-France. The raw materials are weighed out and blended with water into a uniform body. The recipe is the workshop’s own and determines both the colour of the fired body and the density of the stoneware.
Forming
Most of the production is formed in plaster moulds. The liquid body is poured into the mould, where the plaster draws the water out of the outer layer so that an even wall forms; the surplus is poured off, and the piece is taken out once it is firm enough to hold its own shape. The workshop’s mould archive holds models from more than a hundred years of production, and this is where the historical series are reissued from.
Drying and fettling
The formed pieces dry slowly before mould seams and edges are fettled and handles, spouts and taps are fitted by hand. This is also where each piece receives the workshop’s stamp on the base.
Glazing
The glaze is applied by hand in the workshop’s colours – from the classic browns and blues to newer shades such as terre battue and bright yellow. Because the work is done by hand, the glaze varies slightly from piece to piece. That is part of the product’s character, not a flaw.
Firing at 1250 °C
The stoneware is fired at 1250 °C. At that temperature the body vitrifies and becomes completely dense, so the jars absorb neither liquid nor odour – which is why Digoin’s vinegar jars, terrines and salting pots were used for food long before the refrigerator. The same density makes the garden pots frost-proof.
Sorting
After firing, every piece is checked and sorted by hand before it is packed. Small variations in glaze and colour are part of a piece of stoneware formed and glazed by people.
