Best known for stylized depictions of female figures—odalisques, reclining nudes, and mythological goddesses—René Buthaud was one of the most important French ceramists of the Art Deco period. Although he began as a painter and engraver in the academic style and trained at l’École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, in 1919 Buthaud turned to ceramics, which became his choice medium thereafter. Buthaud originally focused on decorative, enameled ceramics, which were fired in a wood-burning kiln he built himself (later to be replaced by a more effective coal-burning kiln.) Using vivid, jazz-age color palettes and firm outlines to paint foliage, geometric compositions, and nudes, Buthaud explored classical, primitive, and naturalistic themes, all while championing the ideals of modernism.