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Faience styles in French Colonial North America: A revised classification

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Abstract

Previous archaeological systems for classifying French faience have not proven (nor were they designed to be) applicable to the entire range of faience found at North American sites. By combining elements of two widely-used systems designed for faience from Québec and Illinois sites, and drawing on published information from French archaeologists and art historians, a revised classification is proposed that accounts for most of the faience likely to be recovered from 17th- and 18th-century sites in North America.

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Waselkov, G.A., Walthall, J.A. Faience styles in French Colonial North America: A revised classification. Hist Arch 36, 62–78 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374339

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