Mithé ESPELT

Mithé Espelt – Life, Gilded Ceramic Mirrors and Jewellery Boxes

Born in the small southern French town of Lunel, on the edge of the Camargue, Mithé Espelt (1923-2020) – Marie-Thérèse Espelt – spent more than five decades making mirrors, boxes, jewellery and decorative objects in glazed earthenware highlighted with kiln-fired gold. She never signed her work and shunned publicity, which is why her name was almost forgotten until the 2010s. Today her pieces are sought after by collectors of post-war French ceramics and decorative art.

At its Paris galleries, Le Coin des Arts offers original ceramics by Mithé Espelt: wall mirrors such as « Manège », « Fleurs » and « Cage », square mirrors, pink and gilded « Oiseau » boxes, jewellery boxes and doves. Each piece is chosen for the quality of its glazes and gilding, its provenance and its condition.

A Languedoc childhood

Marie-Thérèse Espelt was born in 1923 into a family of wine growers in Lunel, in the Hérault. The painter and stage designer Jean Hugo, who lived at the Mas de Fourques near the town, belonged to the family’s circle, and she grew up surrounded by the artistic and literary culture of the south of France.

Art school and the Fontcarrade experiment

Aged sixteen, in 1939, she enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier to study drawing and sculpture. She then turned to ceramics under Émilie Decanis and was among the first students of the experimental ceramics school at Fontcarrade. Decanis recognised her ability early and included her work in several exhibitions in France and abroad.

Post-war Paris: couture buttons

After the war she completed her training in Paris, where, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, she made ceramic buttons for the haute couture houses and worked in the circle of the designer Line Vautrin. That apprenticeship between fashion accessory and precious object shaped her whole career.

The Lunel studio, from 1946

Around 1946, at twenty-three, she returned south and opened her own ceramics studio in Lunel, first making pottery, then her earliest jewellery collections and small mirrors. Her mirrors scattered with gold flakes and her little « secret boxes » date from about 1947-1948. Models documented since include « Bijoux » (1948), « Amélie » and « Oblong » (1949), « Quadrille » (c. 1952), « Mérida » (c. 1955), « Engrenages » (c. 1958), « Cuzco » (1974) and « Esmeralda » (1980).

Her work was sold first in Sète, Montpellier and Paris, later in Biarritz, Saint-Tropez, Martinique and the United States. She designed jewellery collections for the Provençal house Souleiado, run by Charles Deméry, and accepted private commissions, among them from the writer Louise de Vilmorin. Working through a handful of trusted retailers, she kept her distance from the art world throughout her career.

Rediscovery and the Candau monograph

Because her pieces were unsigned, many circulated anonymously or were credited to others, notably François Lembo. In the 2010s the collector Antoine Candau met the artist, catalogued her output and published Mithé Espelt, le luxe discret du quotidien (Éditions Odyssée, 2020; also issued in English as The discreet luxury of the everyday). Mithé Espelt died in September 2020, aged 97, shortly before the book appeared; it is now the standard reference for identifying and dating her models.

Materials and colour

Espelt worked in press-moulded earthenware (terre estampée), coated with coloured enamels – turquoise, black, scarlet, green – and finished with gold fired in the kiln, frequently with a crackle effect. Some pieces are set with glass or pâte de verre. Mirrors combine the ceramic surround with a looking-glass and a green felt back; boxes often sit on a black lacquered wooden base lined with felt. Birds, doves, flowers and radiant suns recur throughout her repertoire.

Collecting Mithé Espelt: what to look for

Attribution – as Espelt rarely signed, the absence of a signature or mark is to be expected. Attribution rests on the model, the making (moulded earthenware, enamels, kiln-fired gold, felt backing) and ideally a reference to Candau’s monograph, usually quoted as « Candau p. … ».
Date – models are dated by their year of creation; late-1940s and 1950s pieces are the most keenly collected.
Condition – check for chips, hairline cracks, rubbing to the gilding, restoration, and the state of the mirror glass (foxing, desilvering or replacement), as well as the original felt.
Provenance – a known history and a certificate of authenticity add to value.

Genuine Espelt or optimistic attribution? Her recent success has brought onto the market period pieces by other southern French potters labelled a little too quickly with her name. Comparing a piece with published models and buying from a dealer who guarantees the attribution remain the safest course.

Le Coin des Arts selects each Espelt piece with care for its authenticity, condition and provenance, and can advise on display and framing. You may also enjoy the gallery’s ceramics and sculpture and works by Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger and Jean Chauvin, together with the gallery’s contemporary art.

Sources and references

Antoine Candau, Mithé Espelt, le luxe discret du quotidien, Éditions Odyssée, 2020 · Mithé Espelt: The discreet luxury of the everyday (English edition) · Numéro, 2021 · Galerie Omagh · 1stDibs