By Delft
Located in DELFT, NL
This antique eighteenth-century Dutch Delftware wall plaque is made of tin-glazed earthenware, also known as Delft faience. The shaped ceramic plaque is painted in blue, green, yellow, iron-red and manganese. Its raised, self-framing border is outlined in blue and decorated with continuous scrolling ornament against a green ground.
The centre is painted with an elaborate symmetrical fantasy ornament composed of three winged masks, volutes, foliage, shell motifs and scale-patterned fields. The central mask supports a two-handled vase filled with flowers, with a bird in flight above the bouquet. The plaque is pierced at the top for suspension and was made specifically for wall display.
The composition belongs to the broader tradition of French-inspired grotesque ornament that circulated in the Dutch Republic through prints by designers such as Jean Bérain and Daniel Marot. By the mid-eighteenth century, Delft painters had adapted this ornamental vocabulary freely, combining masks, scrolls and fantastical forms into highly decorative compositions.
Delftware wall plaques held a distinct place within eighteenth-century Dutch interiors. In contemporary household inventories, they were sometimes recorded as porceleine schilderijen, or “porcelain paintings”, reflecting their function as ceramic counterparts to paintings on panel, canvas or copper. During the eighteenth century, Delft potters increasingly produced plaques in moulds with shaped outlines and raised borders, creating complete, self-framed decorative objects.
With its unusual grotesque decoration, strong polychrome palette and pronounced shaped border, this antique Delft plaque...
Category
18th Century Dutch Baroque Antique Delft Furniture
MaterialsEarthenware, Delft, Faience