•D2322. Pair of Polychrome and Gilded Armorial Dishes

Gerardus married Margaretha Pott (1713-1782) on April 3, 1736 in Utrecht, but an order of Delft plates to celebrate his own marriage is not known at present. The image of Gerardus Nahuys is known from a 1745 drawing (fig. 2), and from a later pastel portrait at age 77, which, along with a pendant portrait of his wife, were painted in 1772 by Pieter Frederik de la Croix (1709-1782) [RKD, IB-nos. 82171/2, see also 46658/59/60].

As elaborate as the accollée coats of arms are on this plate, they followed the prescribed elements of formal heraldry. The cipher or entwined, mirror-image monogram on the reverse, however, was a more imaginative creation for which there were various source books available to artists. One such design book was Daniel de La Feuille’s Livre nouveau et utile pour toutes sortes d’artistes, et particulierement pour les orfevres, les orlogeurs, les peintres, les graveures, les brodeurs, ec. contenant 4 alphabets de chiffres fleuronnez… (A book new and useful to all kind of artists, in particular for goldsmiths, watchmakers, painters, engravers, embroiderers, etc, including four alphabets of flowering numeral letters…), Amsterdam, 1694, ofwhich a Dutch copy was published also by Petrus Schenk in the early eighteenth century.

In 1973, D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer and W.G.F.C. Rissink devoted an article to a group of Delft dishes related to the Nahuys family, entitled “Delftse wapenborden uit het eerste kwart van de achttiende eeuw” (“Delft armorial dishes from the first quarter of the eighteenth century”), in: Antiek, 7 (1972-73) 8, pp. 563-569. The first is a 1713-dated blue and white dish (p. 564 ills. 1-2) with the marriage arms of Henricus Nahuys (1656-1722) and Huberta van Dompselaer (1659-1725) [see RKD, IB-nos. 46656/7 for their portraits], the parents of Petrus and Gerardus. Henricus was a minister in Delftshaven from 1687 to 1719, and in 1695 he published a eulogy on the death of Queen Mary II. The inscription“G.Nahuys” on the reverse of this dish indicates it was a gift from their son, although the occasion remains unclear, since their wedding took place on July 5, 1687 in Utrecht.

The second of the Nahuys dishes is a blue and white dish (p. 567, ill. 5) decorated with the Tablets of Moses (The Ten Commandments), dated 1717, inscribed on the front “G. Nahuijs”, and marked on the reverse JDE. There is also a large blue and white dish (p. 565, ills. 3-4, 39 cm. diam.) in the collection of the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels (inv. no. Ev. 240) with a Chinese kraak pattern, inscribed on the reverse with the same crowned monogram and the text “G:NAHUYS.ANNO.1718. DEN 11/12,” an identical example of which is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, illustrated in Van Dam 2004, p. 142, ill. 89 and in Van Dam 1991, p. 63, no. 29.

The family not only had close residential ties to Delfshaven, the port of Delft, but Gerardus actually lived in the house of Anthonij van der Kloot, owner of De Drie Posteleyne Astonne (The Three Porcelain Barrels) factory from 1716 to 1722, who in his will of 1720 bequeathed 5000 guilders to Gerardus. This had led various authors (Hoekstra-Klein, 2004, vol. 10, p. 64, Loet Schledorn in Van Aken-Fehmers 2001, p. 34, and Van dam 1991, p. 62) to pose the question of whether Gerardus was a faience painter himself. But with the exception of the last-mentioned, all of these dishes seem to indicate that Gerardus Nahuys was simply the patron for their commission.

SIMILAR EXAMPLES
Several plates identical to the present pair with the Nahuys-Van Hoecke arms are known, confirming that they were originally part of a set. An identical plate is illustrated in Aronson 2009, p. 63, no. 39, which was exhibited at the Tentoonstelling van Oude Kunst, 1936, no. 802 in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Other examples include a plate from the Klatte collection, illustrated in M. Vigelius, “Wapengoet” (“Armorial Wares”) I, in: Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift, XLII (1932) 84, p.182, pl. XXXIX, no. 9; one in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft (inv. no. Im 2783); and another in the Fentener van Vlissingen collection, illustrated in De Jonge 1947, p. 298, ill. 264, and in Lunsingh Scheurleer, Rissink 1973, p. 568, ill. 6. A further example was sold at Christie’s in Amsterdam on November 2, 2005, lot 341; and another was sold at Frederik Muller & Cie in Amsterdam on December 11, 1928, lot 190.

Besides the set to which the present plates belong, there is another set of 1719-dated armorial dishes on which the central shield is flanked by Mercury above a banderole inscribed “C.V. HOEKKE.1719,” for Christoffel van Hoecke (1665-1720). Examples of these are in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft, illustrated in Lunsingh Scheurleer, Rissink 1973, p. 568, ill. 7; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, illustrated in Van Dam 1991, p. 65, no. 30; and in the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels (inv. No. Ev. 161), illustrated in Helbig II, p. 51, fig. 35.