Collectors the world over, and particularly in the great antebellum homes of the Deep South, 

prize what has become known as "Old Paris" or "Vieux Paris" porcelain.  This refers to the incredibly 

gilt, painted, extremely decorated tableware, vases, urns, clocks, figures, inkwells, perfume bottles, 

and all manner of accessories created in and around the city of Paris, by over 30 different factories 

and hundreds of artisans, from the mid-1700s through the end of the Second Empire.  

Styles vary from neo-classical to rococo revival, Gothic to Renaissance revival. 

The history of these pieces is as colorful as the items themselves.