Plaque de revêtement mural à décor aquatique de style japonisant

It was the construction of the Menier chocolate factory at Noisiel (Seine-et-Marne) that gave Emile Muller the opportunity to reveal his talent by producing coloured, earthenware decorations to cover the external walls of the iron-framed building in 1871. He died in 1889, the same year that architectural ceramics triumphed at the 1889 Universal Exhibition. It was his son Louis who subsequently took over the business.
From a stylistic point of view, this Japanese-influenced panel should be compared with Muller's creations designed for the function room built in Paris in 1895 for one of the directors of the Bon Marché department store. Later, in 1931, this became the Pagoda. Because of its excellent state of preservation and "pictorial" design, this aquatic landscape may well have come from inside a building, a porch or an entrance hall.