Channe valaisanne
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A pewter jug from Valais, for serving wine.
In French-speaking Switzerland, the word channe means a jug closed with a lid. The Valais one is recognisable by its well-rounded belly: a pewter jug, in soft grey metal, from which wine is poured at the table.
Pewter has a long history in Switzerland. It was already being brought in more than three thousand years ago, and from the 14th century pewterers appear in the town guilds, often close to the goldsmiths. They mostly made tableware for wine and the table: jugs and channes, but also dishes, bowls and plates. These pieces filled the guildhalls, the town halls and the homes of the nobility, then those of well-off middle-class families.
Each region had its own shapes: a bell shape in the north and east of the country, cut corners in central Switzerland and Graubünden, and in French-speaking Switzerland this pot-bellied jug that is called Valais, or Vaud. In the 19th century, households gradually turned from pewter to ceramics. Even so, a good many of these old shapes are still made today.
Source: Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, “Potiers d’étain”.
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