Delfts Blauw
Af en toe lees ik een stukje in het boek âThe East India Company at Home, 1757-1857â samengesteld door Margot Finn en Kate Smith (en gratis te downloaden). Ik ben al meer te weten gekomen over Chinees behang en laque meubelen die als prestige objecten de Engelse landhuizen sierden. Dit fragment betrekt ook het zeventiende eeuwse Holland, de VOC en het Delfts blauw in het verhaal.
âThey brew very good beer, but are perticularly famous for their Porcellane or earthern ware, which they paint better than the Chinese, make more large, and as beautifull everyway, could they but make their small ware transparent in which the Chinese have the advantage of them.â
âThis record of Delft earthenware recorded in Francis Child the Elderâs diary evokes the growing fervour for objects from the East in Europe in the backdrop of the ever- widening channels of global maritime trade. Francis Childâs observation about the unique transparency of Chinese porcelain compared to Delft earthenware was astute. Tin- glazed pottery had been produced in Holland since the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and Delft had emerged as one of the main centres for its production in the seventeenth century. With the rise in imports of Chinese porcelain by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) after 1602, the fashion for blue and white porcelain put traditional Delft ceramic wares into competition with their exotic counterparts. As a result, from the first quarter of the seventeenth century, Delft potters had begun to imitate the transparent finish of Chinese blue and white porcelain ware by using Chinese style decorations in cobalt blue over a white- tin glazed background.â (p. 107)
Afbeelding: Een Delfts blauw-wit octagonaal chinoiserie vaasje, 17e eeuw















