Pair of 20th Century Picassiette Planters

Pair of 20th Century colourful French decorative pic assiette on wire mesh reinforced concrete planters. 

Pique assiette or trencadis is a style of mosaic that incorporates ceramic shards, broken dishes and other found objects into a design. While traditional mosaics used small cubes that were relatively uniformly shaped, pique assiette or trencadis tends to use nonuniform pieces. 

The term pique assiette has a French origin. Some say it translates to “stolen plate” or “broken plate”. It also refers to someone who is a “scrounger” which of course fits because most pique assiette art is created with recycled or scavenged materials. 

Trencadis is a Catalan term that means “chopped” or “breakable”. There is a long tradition of using broken and discarded materials to create folk art.

Circa 1950.