It was in 1690, under the reign of Louis XIV, that a young Provençal named Jean-Baptiste Bousquet founded Quimper's first ceramics factory, in the Locmaria district. His timing was good. The economic crisis that resulted from wars and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which led to Protestant emigration and the flight of capital, forced the king in 1689 to ask private citizens to bring their silverware to be melted down to strike new coins.

The melted silverware needed to be replaced, first by imported porcelain and then by faïence. As France didn't yet know the secret to the manufacture of porcelain, earthenware makers produced high quality pieces to satisfy the demand. In addition, Colbert wanted the population to produce what it needed rather than resort to importation, so the conditions were entirely favourable for the creation of new factories. Quimper was ideally placed: there were no other earthenware factories in the province; the wood to heat the ovens was abundant and inexpensive; a clay deposit at Toulven on the banks of the Odet river allowed pottery, stoneware and white earthenware to be made. The Odet also allowed earth to be brought in and the finished products to be shipped. The last determining factor for the creation of the first earthenware factory in the region, which is still operating today, was the availability of cheap labour.

Here started the aesthetic story of these ceramics, whose style stands out among others. The popular faïence of Quimper has always had a recognizable style. Until 1914, it relied on the same shapes, designs and techniques. From the 18th century onwards the designs were made up of stripes and thin lines, circular rays, with garlands, four-coloured flowerets - ochre yellow, ochre red, grey-green, grey-blue - and subjects common to the faïence of western and southern Europe: houses, birds, flowered baskets, garlands of flowers and leaves, geometric designs. The technique for painting the design also changed, as it did in the popular arts of other regions: an outline coloured in using a stencil gave way to the painting of shape and colour in a single brush stroke.

Today you can still see dishes painted with a small and charming Breton who has been exported all over the world. If he was the symbol of an authentic popular art, he nonetheless became in the 19th century a stereotyped and fixed expression of the same art. Works of art by Quimper earthenware makers can still be seen today, such as the shrines to the Virgin still on display in front of so many Breton houses.