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Born in Limoges, he went to the School of Drawing as
soon as 1859, then to the Municipal School of Painting on Chinaware. After
having completed his training he entered the important crockery Jules VIEILLARD
Co. in Bordeaux, which he left in 1873 to join Léon SAZERAT’s
manufacture (1831-1891) in Limoges. In 1874 he was hired at the crockery FOUQUET
and in 1876 he went to Monaco to manage the crockery and it is probably there
that he started to get interested in the artistic promises of stoneware. He left
after the earth-quake of 1887 and went back to SAZERAT in Limoges. In 1889 he
settled down in Bourg la Reine and there started the fabulous work we have known
since. In 1892 a first contract was signed with the sculptor Alphonse VOISIN
DELACROIX, then a second one which included a two-way exclusiveness on a span of
twelve years. The exhibition from December 12th to 27th
1892 of the Georges PETIT Gallery (1856-1920) aroused a general enthusiasm which
lasted until the Universal Exhibition of Chicago in 1893. This working together
stopped on April 2nd 1893 at the death of VOISIN DELACROIX who was
replaced by Jean COULON in 1894. The factory seemed to be in a permanent
financial predicament so that it widened its production in 1896 by starting a
more "standard" range of china. Adrien DALPAYRAT, now with the help of his
sons Albert, Adolphe, Hyppolite, then Paul, went on producing flamed stoneware
and was awarded a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. He then made
most amazing pieces, some of them set with golden bronze by the Parisian
jewellers CARDEILHAC and KELLER. Yet, they still had financial problems and the
factory finally closed down in 1906. Utterly forgotten in the 20s, it is only in
the 60s that his work will be recognized, and rightly so, as one of the very
best.
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