11/30/2019 Delftware - Wikipedia

Delftware
Delftware or Delft pottery, also known as Delft Blue[1] (Dutch: Delfts
blauw), is a general term now used for Dutch tin-glazed earthenware, a form of
faience. Most of it is blue and white pottery, and the city of Delft in the
Netherlands was the major centre of production, but the term covers wares
with other colours, and made elsewhere. It is also used for similar pottery that
it influenced made in England, but this should be called English delftware to
avoid confusion.

Delftware is one of the types of tin-glazed earthenware or faience in which a

white glaze is applied, usually decorated with metal oxides, in particular the
cobalt oxide that gives the usual blue, and can withstand high firing
temperatures, allowing it to be applied under the glaze. It also forms part of the
worldwide family of blue and white pottery, using variations of the plant-based
decoration first developed in 14th-century Chinese porcelain, and in great
demand in Europe.
Vase in a Japanese style, c. 1680,
Delftware includes pottery objects of all descriptions such as plates, vases and Delft
other ornamental forms and tiles. The start of the style was around 1600, and
the most highly regarded period of production is about 1640–
1740, but Delftware continues to be produced. In the 17th and
18th centuries Delftware was a major industry, exporting all over
Europe.

Contents
History
Objects gallery
Tile gallery
Window display of Delftware in the market place,
See also
Delft
References
Bibliography
External links

History
The earliest tin-glazed pottery in the Netherlands was made in Antwerp where the Italian potter Guido da Savino settled in
1500,[2] and in the 16th century Italian maiolica was the main influence on decorative styles.[3] The manufacture of
painted pottery spread from Antwerp to the northern Netherlands, in particular because of the sack of Antwerp by the

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Spanish troops in 1576 (the Spanish Fury). Production developed in Middelburg and Haarlem in the 1570s and in
Amsterdam in the 1580s.[4] Much of the finer work was produced in Delft, but simple everyday tin-glazed pottery was
made in places such as Gouda, Rotterdam, Haarlem, Amsterdam and Dordrecht.[5]

The main period of tin-glaze pottery in the Netherlands was 1640–1740. From
about 1640 Delft potters began using personal monograms and distinctive
factory marks. The Guild of St Luke, to which painters in all media had to
belong, admitted ten master potters in the thirty years between 1610 and 1640,
and twenty in the nine years 1651 to 1660. In 1654 a gunpowder explosion in
Delft destroyed many breweries and as the brewing industry was in decline,
they became available to pottery makers looking for larger premises; some
retained the old brewery names, e.g. The Double Tankard, The Young Moors'
Head, and The Three Bells.[6]

The use of marl, a type of clay rich in calcium compounds, allowed the Dutch
potters to refine their technique and to make finer items. The usual clay body "Armorial Dish" (wapenbord) by
of Delftware was a blend of three clays, one local, one from Tournai and one Willem Jansz. Verstraeten, c. 1645-
1655, Haarlem
from the Rhineland.[7]

From about 1615, the potters began to coat their pots completely in white tin
glaze instead of covering only the painting surface and coating the rest with clear ceramic glaze. They then began to cover
the tin-glaze with clear glaze, which gave depth to the fired surface and smoothness to cobalt blues, ultimately creating a
good resemblance to porcelain.[8]

During the Dutch Golden Age, the Dutch East India Company had a lively
trade with the East and imported millions of pieces of Chinese porcelain in the
early 17th century.[9] The Chinese workmanship and attention to detail
impressed many. Only the richest could afford the early imports. Dutch potters
did not immediately imitate Chinese porcelain; they began to do so after the
death of the Wanli Emperor in 1620, when the supply to Europe was
interrupted.[8] "Potters now saw an opportunity to produce a cheap alternative
for Chinese porcelain. After much experimenting they managed to make a thin
type of earthenware which was covered with a white tin glaze. Although made 18th century Delftware, the plate at
left with a Japanese scene
of low-fired earthenware, it resembled porcelain amazingly well."[10]

Delftware inspired by Chinese originals persisted from about 1630 to the mid-
18th century alongside European patterns. Around 1700 several factories were using enamel colours and gilding over the
tin-glaze, requiring a third kiln firing at a lower temperature. Later, after Japanese Imari ware had become popular in the
late 1600s and early 1700s (when it too tried to fill the gap of the Chinese shortage), Delft began making their own 'Imari
ware' copying the classic 'flower vase on a terrace surrounded by three panels with cranes and pine design'. Oriental styles
in Delftware remained popular into the early 1700s but then declined when Chinese porcelain became available again.[11]

Delftware ranged from simple household items – plain white earthenware with little or no decoration – to fancy artwork.
Most of the Delft factories made sets of jars, the kast-stel set. Pictorial plates were made in abundance, illustrated with
religious motifs, native Dutch scenes with windmills and fishing boats, hunting scenes, landscapes and seascapes. Sets of
plates were made with the words and music of songs; dessert was served on them and when the plates were clear the
company started singing.[12] The Delft potters also made tiles in vast numbers (estimated at eight hundred million[13])
over a period of two hundred years; many Dutch houses still have tiles that were fixed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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Delftware became popular and was widely exported in Europe and even
reached China and Japan. Chinese and Japanese potters made porcelain
versions of Delftware for export to Europe.

Some regard Delftware from about 1750 onwards as artistically inferior.

Caiger-Smith says that most of the later wares "were painted with clever,
ephemeral decoration. Little trace of feeling or originality remained to be
lamented when, at the end of the eighteenth century, the Delftware potteries
began to go out of business."[14] By this time Delftware potters had lost their
market to British porcelain and the new white earthenware. One or two
remain: the Tichelaar[15] factory in Makkum, Friesland, founded in 1594 and
De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles ("The Royal Porcelain Bottle") founded in 1653.
Dutch Delftware tile
Today, Delfts Blauw (Delft Blue) is the brand name hand painted on the
bottom of ceramic pieces identifying them as authentic and collectible.
Although most Delft Blue borrows from the tin-glaze tradition, it is nearly all decorated in underglaze blue on a white clay
body and very little uses tin glaze, a more expensive product. The Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum factory in Makkum,
Friesland continue the production of tin-glazed earthenware.[16][17]

Delft Blue pottery formed the basis of one of British Airways' ethnic tailfins. The design, Delftblue Daybreak, was applied
to 17 aircraft.

Objects gallery

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Delftware in Pushkin Art Museum, Two flower vases, early 18th century,
Russia Delft

Tulip vase, Museum Boijmans Van Charger with Shiba Onko Design, c.
Beuningen 1730, Delft

An imari-styled vase, manufactured in Boar's Head Tureen and Stand, c.

De Griekse A, (ca. 1700–1720), 1750
Museum Geelvinck-Hinlopen Huis

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A famille rose plate, around 1770, A ceramics workshop in Delftse Pauw

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

Painting of color Delft pottery Schoonhoven silver topped scent

bottle

Tile gallery

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Museum of Friesland, Leeuwarden, Biblical tiles, Museum of Gdańsk,

Netherlands Poland

Toilet of Rosenborg Castle, Farmhouse interior, Hoogland, near

Copenhagen Utrecht

Kitchen of the Hospice Comtesse, Swimming pool of Nymphenburg

Lille Palace, Munich

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Kitchen of the Amalienburg, Reconstitution of the Trianon de

Nymphenburg Palace porcelaine, Versailles

Victor Hugo's dining room, Hauteville Château de Groussay, Montfort-

House, Guernesey, 1860 l'Amaury near Paris, Tartar tent with
10,000 tiles, 1960

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Braemar Castle, Cow & Milkmaid tile Braemar Castle, Horse & Rider tile by
by fireplace. fireplace.

Braemar Castle, Windmill tile by

fireplace.

See also
English Delftware
Gallery Terra Delft, modern ceramic art
Maiolica
KLM (section Delft Blue houses)
Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles
Kraak porcelain

References
1. Delft Blue ([Link] [Link]
2. La Céramique anversoise de la Renaissance, de Venise à Delft, Claire Dumortier, Anthèse, Paris, 1997
3. Savage, 157
4. Caiger-Smith, Alan, Tin-Glaze Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World: The Tradition of 1000 Years in Maiolica,
Faience and Delftware (Faber and Faber, 1973 ISBN 0-571-09349-3, p. 127
5. Caiger-Smith, p. 131
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6. Caiger-Smith pp. 130–131

7. Caiger-Smith, p. 130
8. Caiger-Smith, p. 129
9. Volker, T. Porcelain and the Dutch East India Company, 1602–1683, Leiden, 1955) p. 22.
10. Christiaan Jörg, "Oriental Export Porcelain and Delftware in the Groningen Museum" in Ceramics Crossed Overseas:
Jingdezhen, Imari and Delft from the collection of the Groningen Museum. An exhibition catalogue in collaboration
with the Groninger Museum, Kyushu Ceramic Museum, Japan Airlines, 1999-2000, p. 10.
11. Christiaan Jörg, pp. 10-11.
12. Caiger-Smith, p. 136.
13. Caiger-Smith, p. 137 n. 21
14. Caiger-Smith, p. 140
15. [Link] ([Link]
16. Klei/Glas/Keram. 13, No.4, 1992. Pg.103-106
17. "Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum" ([Link] [Link]. Retrieved 2012-02-22.

Bibliography
Alan Caiger-Smith, Tin-Glaze Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World: The Tradition of 1000 Years in Maiolica,
Faience and Delftware, Faber and Faber, 1973 ISBN 0-571-09349-3
Jan Pluis, The Dutch Tile, Designs and Names 1570–1930, Nederlands Tegelmuseum – Friends of the Museum of
Otterlo Tiles, Primavera Pers, Leiden 1997
Savage, George, Pottery Through the Ages, Penguin, 1959

External links
Delftware techniques ([Link]
Illustrated history of the Dutch tile ([Link]
History of Delftware ([Link]

Video on an exhibition of Delftware in Haarlem,

Netherlands, October 1958

Retrieved from "[Link]

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