page_title: Limoges
section_title: Art and literature
hierarchical_section_title: Limoges / Art and literature
caption_attribution_description: English: The murder of Thomas Becket, detail from a reliquary. Champlevé enamel over gilt copper, Limoges (Limousin, France). Français&#160;: L'assassinat de Thomas Becket, détail d'un reliquaire. Émail champlevé sur cuivre doré, Limoges (Limousin, France).
context_page_description: Limoges is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and was the administrative capital of the former Limousin region in west-central France.
  Limoges is known for its medieval and Renaissance enamels on copper, for its 19th-century porcelain and for its oak barrels which are used for Cognac and Bordeaux production. Some are even exported to wineries in California. Limoges has also a basketball club, the CSP Limoges, which is the only one in France to win the EuroLeague in 1993, making CSP the first club of all French collective sports to win a major European competition.
context_section_description: "Le marché de Limoges" (Limoges market) is the name of a section of Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky.
  In 1768, kaolin, a rock rich in fine, white clay which is used for making porcelain, was discovered at Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, 30 km south of Limoges. Under the impetus of the progressive economist Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, who had been appointed intendant of this impoverished and isolated region, a new ceramics industry was developed, and Limoges porcelain became famous during the 19th century. However, Limoges porcelain is a generic term for porcelain produced in Limoges rather than at a specific factory (there are still several porcelain factories in and around Limoges). More than 50% of all porcelain made in France comes from Limoges
  Limoges is mentioned in T.S. Eliot's poem Gerontion (London 1919), lines 23 to 25:
  "... Mr. Silvero/
  With caressing hands, at Limoges/
  Who walked all night in the next room."
  Eliot's compatriot and mentor Ezra Pound visited Limoges in 1912 when researching the landscape and the work of the 12th-century troubadours. As he states in his essay Troubadours: Theirs Sorts and Conditions: "... a man may walk the hill roads and river roads from Limoges and Charente to Dordogne and Narbonne and learn a little, or more than a little, of what the country meant to the wandering singers ..."
  There is also a reference to Limoges in Jean-Paul Sartre's novel Nausea, near the middle of the book in the Shrove Tuesday section, when the magistrate says: "I had a similar case at the beginning of my career. It was in 1902. I was deputy magistrate at Limoges ..."
caption: The murder of Thomas Becket, Limoges enamel, 12th century, Louvre Museum
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