Delft, circa 1754

Dimensions: Height: 34.8 cm (13.7 in.)

PROVENANCE
French Private Collection, Paris, 2023 (Provenance+)

SIMILAR EXAMPLES
Two similar model cisterns of different hight, of which one is also dated 1754, are depicted in Aronson 2000-2001, ill 33.

Whether the gentleman was intended to represent Olsen himself or simply served as an emblem of connoisseurship remains unknown. Either way, the image seems particularly appropriate for a collector whose collection was studied, documented, and eventually described as a historical survey of the ceramic arts.¹ It also invites a closer look at the man behind the Ole Olsen Collection.

Ole Olsen is remembered principally as the founder of Nordisk Film, one of the oldest film studios still in existence (Fig. 1). His path toward becoming one of Denmark’s most successful entrepreneurs, however, was anything but conventional. Born into modest circumstances in rural Denmark, Olsen had severe dyslexia, a condition that was neither recognized nor understood at the time.² As a result, he received very little formal education. His childhood and early adulthood were unsettled. At the age of nine, he had his first encounter with the police after he and several other boys stole a purse. The following year he was sent to a reformatory after repeatedly running away from home. His early adult life was similarly precarious, encompassing numerous occupations, periods of financial difficulty, and further brushes with the law.

Olsen eventually found his calling in popular entertainment. As a musician and showman, and later with his travelling troupe Karavanen, he toured fairs and festivals throughout Scandinavia. By 1896 he had become director of Malmö Tivoli, an amusement park. In 1905, he opened a cinema in Copenhagen, and the following year founded Nordisk Films Kompagni. The company expanded rapidly. By 1908 it had produced around one hundred films, and by 1910 Nordisk Film had become the second-largest film production company in the world, exporting approximately ninety-eight percent of its output. Germany became its largest foreign market, where Olsen acquired approximately thirty-five first-run cinemas.³

The success of Nordisk Film gave Olsen the financial means to build an art collection, but his own account makes clear that money did not create his interest in collecting. “The joy of collecting had been in me since my youth,” he recalled in his autobiography, Filmens Eventyr og mit eget (The Adventure of Film and My Life), published in 1940. Shortly after arriving in Copenhagen from the countryside, he spent some of his last money to visit the Moltke painting collection. Only when he later had both money to spare and a permanent home, he wrote, could he begin collecting himself. His first painting was acquired after he became the owner of the cinema in Vimmelskaftet. It depicted a poor, barefoot boy travelling the roads selling mousetraps. “Looking at it made me think of my own life,” Olsen remembered.⁴

The greater part of his private collection was assembled between 1914 and 1930. In the years following the First World War, Olsen travelled south almost every month, attending major auctions in Germany and Austria and becoming familiar with dealers and private owners there. The upheavals of postwar Europe brought important collections onto the market and created unusual opportunities for an ambitious collector.⁵ His departure from Nordisk Film in 1924 marked a further turning point. “From that day,” he wrote, “I was solely a private individual and devoted myself to my art collections.”⁶

By then, collecting had become far more than an investment or pastime. Olsen articulated a remarkably personal philosophy of collecting: “To be a collector, one must have an eye and a feeling for the cultural values of bygone times, and one must be able to live and feel with the person who created the work of art.”⁷

His description of his relationship with individual objects is equally revealing. When he acquired something new, he sometimes kept it in his living room for months, looking at it repeatedly before allowing it to become another number among the approximately 3,500 objects in his collection (Fig 2). “Each speaks its own language, each has its own history,” he wrote, calling the objects his “silent friends.⁸

These recollections give the small figure on Olsen’s collector’s label an unexpected resonance. There is no evidence that the gentleman with the magnifying glass represents Olsen himself, but the image of concentrated observation accords strikingly with Olsen’s own description of how he looked at and lived with his acquisitions.

The scale and scholarly ambition of the collection were already evident in 1924, when the German art historian Hermann Schmitz (1882–1946) published his two-volume catalogue of Olsen’s holdings. Schmitz, a specialist in the decorative arts who had worked at Berlin’s Kunstgewerbemuseum and served as curator at the Schlossmuseum, described the ceramic holdings in terms of a “historical museum of ceramics.”⁹

A similar assessment appears in Olsen’s autobiography, where he reproduced an earlier statement by Otto von Falke, one of the leading museum specialists in the decorative arts of his generation. Von Falke emphasized the collection’s distinctly museum-like character. Its purpose, he argued, was not simply the artistic decoration of Olsen’s home, but the acquisition of outstanding objects from as many of the branches of art represented in public museums as possible.¹⁰ This distinction is important: Olsen was not simply furnishing a wealthy man’s residence. He was attempting to construct a collection in which objects could be understood within a broader history of the decorative arts.

By 1924, Delftware formed a substantial part of Olsen’s ceramic collection. More than forty entries in Schmitz’s catalog were devoted to Delftware, several comprising multiple objects. Later, in his 1940 autobiography, Olsen specifically singled out the Delft faience with grand feu decoration from the second half of the seventeenth century, which he described, on the basis of what he called unanimous assessments, as among the most outstanding works in this part of his collection.¹¹

Schmitz had made a comparable observation in 1924. He noted that few private collections, and indeed only some museums, represented the high points of Delft production during the second half of the seventeenth century so well. His emphasis was therefore not simply on quantity, but on quality.

Several highlights of Olsen’s Delftware collection are illustrated in Ole Olsen Art Collections (1924). Among them is an impressive three-piece garniture, decorated with lion masks and applied rope ornament.¹² The collection contained works associated with leading Delft factories, including De Paauw (The Peacock), De Roos (The Rose), and De Metaale Pot (The Metal Pot), as well as ambitious forms such as garnitures, ribbed vases, tulip vases, and chargers.

Several Delft objects formerly in the Ole Olsen collection have subsequently passed through the collection of Aronson Antiquairs. Among them is an impressive pair of mythological figures representing Diana and Mercury (Fig. 3).¹³ Their sculptural scale, elaborate modeling, and polychrome decoration demonstrate the ambitions of Delft potters beyond the more familiar production of dishes, vases, and functional wares. Objects of this kind also help give material form to the exceptional quality that contemporary descriptions attributed to the Delftware in Olsen’s collection.

Another notable example is the figure of a lady that provided the starting point for this article (Fig. 4). The bust belongs to a small but significant group of figural Delftware sculptures that translate sculptural portrait traditions into tin-glazed earthenware. Delft potters frequently drew inspiration from contemporary prints, sculptural models, and allegorical imagery circulating in Europe, particularly representations of classical goddesses, muses, or personifications of abstract virtues such as Beauty, Abundance, or Harmony. In this case, the generalized features and absence of identifying attributes make a specific portrait identification unlikely.

Olsen’s engagement with his collection extended beyond acquisition. At Stengaarden he had a dedicated top-lit gallery constructed, with large parts of the collection displayed in glass cases. A photograph in his autobiography shows the gallery and, significantly, a vase being restored in the workshop beside it. When war broke out in 1939, Olsen also commissioned a bombproof vault “somewhere in Denmark,” to which approximately eight hundred of his most important objects were transferred in large crates. Although visitors could scarcely tell that anything was missing, Olsen could. He wrote that he would not feel at ease until his “evacuated children” were around him once again.¹⁴

Olsen died in October 1943. His collection did not remain intact. Winkel & Magnussen in Copenhagen subsequently offered works from the Ole Olsen collection in four sales held between January 1944 and May 1953, dispersing objects that had once been brought together at Stengaarden across new private and institutional collections.

The dispersal transformed Olsen’s collection from a single ensemble into thousands of individual object histories. Today, traces of it survive in museums, private collections, auction records, catalogues, and in small physical witnesses such as the label inside the Delft bust. Such evidence allows objects that have long since travelled separate paths to be connected once again with the collection of which they once formed part.

The bust that prompted this research therefore tells more than its own history. Its label leads back to a collector who spent months looking at a new acquisition, who remembered the histories of his objects “better than my own,” and who described them as his silent friends. Nearly a century after Olsen assembled his collection, the objects continue to carry fragments of that relationship with them.

NOTES

1. Kai Grunth, Winkel & Magnussen, Kunst i privat eje, vol. I, 1944, pp. 5-6
2. Ole Mortensøn, Ole Olsen – Historiens Aktører nr. 6, Historie-online, December 15, 2020
3. Marguerite Engberg, Ole Olsen – filmproducent, Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, Lex.dk.
4. Ole Olsen, Filmens Eventyr og mit eget, Copenhagen, Jespersen og Pio, 1940, p. 180
5. Ole Olsen, 1940, p. 181
6. Ole Olsen, 1940, p. 157
7. Ole Olsen, 1940, pp. 178–179
8. Ole Olsen, 1940, pp. 179
9. Hermann Schmitz, Generaldirektør Ole Olsens Kunstsamlinger (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1924), p. 1
10. Otto von Falke, as quoted in Olsen, 1940, pp. 176–178, esp. p. 177. Falke describes Olsen’s collecting aim as the acquisition of outstanding objects from, as far as possible, every branch of art represented in public museums.
11. Ole Olsen, 1940, p. 214.
12. Schmitz, 1924, plate XIV, no. 1260
13. Schmitz, 1924, plate XVII, no. 1244
14. Olsen, 1940, p. 194

Genesis 41:14 recounts how Joseph, summoned from prison to appear before the Pharaoh, first shaved and changed into clean garments before entering the royal court. Although brief, the passage illustrates that shaving has long been associated with cleanliness, respectability, and social identity. Throughout history, the act of shaving has exemplifies changing ideals of appearance, hygiene, and status, while the profession of the barber evolved alongside these developments into an indispensable part of everyday urban life.

This month the Delftware barber’s bowl takes center stage, having earned its own place in the history of barbers and surgeons as a ceramic interpretation of one of the barber’s essential tools. Although metal bowls remained the practical choice for everyday use, Delft potters transformed this familiar object into a richly decorated ceramic vessel that exemplifies not only the craft of barbering but also the remarkable artistic versatility of Delft faience.

During the late Middle Ages, barbers and surgeons belonged to the same professional community, and no formal distinction yet existed between the two occupations. As urban guilds in the Low Countries increasingly regulated the profession, different levels of qualification were gradually introduced. The Dutch city of Leiden provides a well-documented example. From 1466 onward, the guild ordinances prescribed a lighter examination for barbers and a more demanding one for surgeons.¹ Nevertheless, both remained members of the same guild, and practitioners were frequently described interchangeably as either barber or surgeon.² For both, shaving, hair cutting, and bloodletting remained an important source of income. Surgeons, however, received additional training in anatomy, wound treatment, fractures, surgical procedures, and the preparation of medicinal remedies.³ Their work included treating wounds, burns, ulcers, and dislocations, performing amputations, and carrying out other surgical interventions, while more specialized operations, such as cataract surgery or the removal of bladder stones, were generally entrusted to specialist practitioners.

From the middle of the sixteenth century onward, a growing number of towns began to separate the two professions institutionally by establishing independent surgeons’ guilds.⁴ Only toward the end of the sixteenth century did the increasing medical professionalization of surgery become reflected in the professional terminology, with the title surgeon gradually becoming reserved for those who had completed the higher level of training.⁵

By the seventeenth century the distinction had become more apparent in everyday practice, although the two professions still overlapped considerably. This ambiguity is embodied in Adriaen van Ostade’s depiction of a barber’s shop (Fig. 1). The seated customer holds a barber bowl beneath his chin while the practitioner shaves him with both hands free. In the background a patient receives treatment, suggesting that shaving and minor surgical procedures were still carried out within the same establishment. Shelves filled with bottles and jars, hanging utensils, and other implements reinforce the impression of a busy workshop in which personal care, minor medical treatment, and everyday social interaction went hand in hand. Most striking, however, is the barber bowl held beneath the customer’s chin. Its unmistakable silhouette, with the characteristic semicircular neck notch, immediately identifies it as one of the barber’s essential tools. The distinctive shape was dictated by function. The deep bowl collected water, soap, and cut hair, while the characteristic semicircular notch fitted closely around the customer’s neck to protect his clothing during shaving. Small holes pierced through the rim allowed the basin to be suspended when not in use. The form itself appears to have developed from the bloodletting bowl, an implement already familiar from the barber-surgeon’s practice.⁶

Some shaving basins incorporate a small depression in the rim, intended to hold the soap or wash ball. A contemporary description of a barber’s basin explicitly mentions “a place like a little Dish to put the Ball in after Lathering,” followed by a reference to “Wash Balls, and Sweet Balls.”⁷ The shape of this small compartment was by no means standardized: surviving examples have circular, oval, and kidney-shaped depressions. Interestingly, several English delftware barber’s bowls even depict a round object within this compartment, providing a visual counterpart to the written description.⁸

Not every shave, however, took place in the barber’s shop.⁹ Barbers also attended clients in their homes, a practice particularly well documented among wealthier customers.¹⁰ Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English accounts record gentlemen receiving regular visits from their barber, sometimes several times a week or even daily. At the same time, inexpensive shaving in barber shops made professional services accessible much further down the social scale. Whether barbers brought all their own equipment on such visits or sometimes used shaving implements belonging to their clients is less clear; both barbers and private individuals are known to have owned shaving equipment.¹¹

The barber’s work was closely connected to changing fashions in personal appearance. Throughout early modern Europe, the beard carried social, religious, and political significance, making shaving an act that reflected contemporary ideas about civility and appearance. Perhaps one of the best-known examples is Tsar Peter the Great, who introduced a beard tax in Russia in 1698 as part of his program of westernization. Men wishing to retain their beards were required to pay the tax and carry a token certifying payment. At the same time, the growing fashion for wigs from the seventeenth century onward added another dimension to the barber’s trade. Barbers increasingly became involved in making, dressing, and maintaining wigs, responding to fashions that could be every bit as important to a gentleman’s appearance as a clean shave. Such developments illustrate that the barber’s work was not merely concerned with hygiene, but was closely connected to changing ideas of fashion, identity, and social status.

The earliest barber bowls were generally made of copper or other metals. Durable and relatively lightweight, they were ideally suited to everyday use, whether in the barber’s shop or during house calls. Metal basins also frequently served as hanging signs outside barber shops, immediately identifying the profession to passers-by.¹² From the second half of the seventeenth century, both imported Chinese and Japanese porcelain examples and locally produced Delftware examples began to appear. While porcelain combined durability with luxury, Delftware offered a more affordable alternative. Rather than simply replacing their metal counterparts, Delft barber bowls seem to have acquired an additional decorative and representative function within the barber’s shop.

The earliest securely datable Delft examples already reveal two distinct decorative traditions. One follows the fashionable floral vocabulary found more often on Delftware made between 1660 and 1680 (Fig. 2). A second, somewhat later, and particularly intriguing group, however, makes explicit reference to the barber’s trade. Scissors, razors, combs, brushes, shaving soap, bloodletting instruments, mirrors, and even complete barber-shop interiors appear on a number of surviving examples. These motifs transformed the basin into far more than a practical utensil: they proclaimed the owner’s profession and visually associated the object with the world in which it functioned.

A remarkable example is a barber’s bowl produced at the Drie Posteleyne Astonne (the Three Porcelain Ash-Barrels) factory during the ownership of Gerrit Pietersz. Kam (1679–1700) (Fig. 3). The decoration combines barber’s implements with the striking inscription Mijn jaer is om (“My year has ended”). Read in isolation, the phrase is enigmatic. Contemporary sources, however, indicate that customers commonly entered into annual, quarterly, or monthly agreements with their barber, renewed at regular intervals.¹³ Against this background, the inscription acquires a more specific meaning, suggesting that it referred to the expiration of such an agreement.

This interpretation gains further credibility when viewed alongside other surviving barber bowls. Dutch and also English examples are known bearing inscriptions such as Betaald mijn vriend, het is verdiend (“Pay, my friend, it has been earned”) and Sir your Quarter is up and Quarter Day Pray Gentlemen Pay 1716.¹⁴ Considered together, these inscriptions suggest that references to payment formed a recognizable decorative theme rather than isolated jokes.

It is impossible to determine with certainty how such inscribed basins functioned in daily practice. Their recurring references to payment nevertheless suggest that they formed part of a recognizable visual language within the barber’s shop. Whether permanently displayed or brought out on particular occasions, the bowls appear to have fulfilled several functions simultaneously: practical implements, decorative objects, advertisements for the barber’s profession, and subtle instruments of communication between barber and client.

An exceptional barbers bowl, made around 1700 (Main Image), offers perhaps the richest surviving visual celebration of the barber-surgeon’s profession. Unlike the majority of surviving Delft examples, this bowl combines a remarkably rich decorative program centered on the barber-surgeon’s profession. The central scene depicts the interior of a barber’s shop and was almost certainly inspired by an earlier engraved model. It bears a close resemblance to Jacob van der Heyden’s print Dwaze man wordt door de barbier ontdaan van de nar die uit zijn hoofd groeit (“A Fool is Relieved by the Barber of the Jester Growing from his Head”), (Fig 4). Although Van der Heyden’s print is allegorical in subject, the Delft painter seems to have borrowed its composition, adapting it into a straightforward representation of a barber-surgeon’s workshop. Around this central scene the painter assembled an extensive repertoire of professional attributes, including razors, scissors, combs, mirrors, brushes, a barbers bowl, and possibly soap- or shaving balls. The inscription Scheert wat saght (“Shaves gently”) appears to advertise the practitioner’s skill, while an unidentified coat of arms occupies a prominent position above the scene.

Although the identity of the original owner remains unknown, the decoration strongly suggests that the basin was commissioned by someone active within the profession rather than produced for the open market. The prominence of the workshop interior, the extensive display of professional implements, and the occupational inscription together celebrate the barber-surgeon’s craft. The inclusion of instruments associated with surgery, combined with the unusually ambitious iconographic program, may even point more specifically to a surgeon, reflecting the enhanced professional status that the occupation had acquired by the turn of the eighteenth century. The unidentified coat of arms most likely refers to the original owner or commissioner, giving the basin a distinctly personal character.

During the eighteenth century, the range of Delftware barbers bowls followed the changing fashions in Delft ceramics more generally. While some examples continued to display inscriptions or attributes associated with the barber’s trade, many were decorated with floral sprays, chinoiserie landscapes, birds, or garden scenes similar to those found on contemporary Delftware. At the same time, their forms evolved from simple circular bowls into elegant oval and rococo shapes with moulded and fluted borders, closely following contemporary taste. Despite these stylistic changes, the characteristic neck notch continued to identify them unmistakably as barbers bowls.

Pieces in the collection of Aronson Antiquairs demonstrate how the traditional circular shape evolved into refined oval forms. One blue and white example from De Porceleyne Byl (The Porcelain Axe) factory, dating from around 1760, illustrates this development particularly well (Fig. 5). Its moulded oval form is decorated with a distinctly European floral design, demonstrating how Delft potters combined innovative shapes with decorative motifs adapted to contemporary European taste.

A further stage is represented by the richly painted polychrome basin, made in Delft or Schiedam around 1765 (Fig. 6). Its more animated outline moves towards the fully developed rococo forms of the later eighteenth century, while its decoration of bamboo, peonies, rock-work, and insects demonstrates how barber bowls had become fully integrated into the finest decorative production of Delft faience. Although none of these examples refers explicitly to the barber’s profession, each remains immediately recognizable through its distinctive form.

This gradual evolution culminated in the fully rococo mode of the later eighteenth century. An outstanding example is a richly moulded basin in the Rijksmuseum (Fig 7), whose asymmetrical outline and exuberant modeling embody the fashionable ornamental vocabulary of the period.

A humorous English print of 1777 provides a vivid glimpse of the barber’s trade towards the end of the century (Fig. 8). The barber is shown carrying a customer’s wig home, while signs outside his shop advertise “Shave for a Penny,” “Bleeding and Teeth drawn,” and “Money for live hair.” The penny shave suggests that professional shaving was accessible well beyond an affluent clientele, while the purchase of human hair points to the commercial importance of the wig trade. Remarkably, the advertisement for bloodletting and tooth extraction shows that older aspects of the barber’s practice had not disappeared. Amid all this, the shaving basin still occupies a prominent place among the tools he carries, emphasizing its enduring importance to the barber’s trade.

Although barber bowls continued to be produced in later styles, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries remain the most inventive period in their development, when practical function, artistic decoration, and professional identity were brought together in a uniquely Delft manner. The surviving bowls demonstrate that they were more than practical tools alone. They could express professional identity, decorate the barber’s shop, advertise services, entertain customers, and perhaps even remind them, with a smile, that it was time to settle the bill. In that sense, Delftware barber’s bowls offer a rare and engaging glimpse into the social world of the early modern barber.

Notes

1. Rudolph Ladan, Gezondheidszorg in Leiden in de late middeleeuwen, Leiden University, 2012, p. 148
2. Ladan, 2012, p. 156
3. Ladan, 2012, p. 145
4. See, for example, Stadsarchief Amsterdam, “Heelmeesters,” April 23, 2019
5. Ladan, 2012, p. 156
6. Sylvie Dhaene, Een collectiestuk uit het Huis van Alijn De barbierstok en het scheerbekken, 2000, p. 222

7. Alun Withey, Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England, 1650–1900 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), p. 94

8. Examples can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston with inv. no. B.2025.9 and Colonial Williamsburg inv. no. 1958-504

9. J. de Kleyn, Aardewerken scheerbekkens met een boodschap die telt, Antiek 23, March 1989, no. 8, p. 448
10. Withey, 2021, p. 12
11. Withey, 2021, p. 118

12. Dhaene, 2000, p. 222

13. J. de Kleyn, 1989, p. 448

14. The first was offered at Christie’s Amsterdam on May 6, 2003, as lot 224. The second, an English delftware example, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. 297-1869). The third was offered at Christie’s London on June 11, 2010, as lot 1119.

From the middle ages onward the barber did not only shave your beard. Since he made both his knives to shave beards, and axes, and sharp surgeon knives and scissors and the pliers to pull teeth, the barber’s field of activity included that of a surgeon, a kind of combination of a dentist and physician. Pulling molars and blood-letting were the most common treatments. Someone who did all of this at the same time is called the ‘barber surgeon’.

From a simple oval or circular utilitarian metal form, barber’s bowls in Delftware developed throughout the eighteenth century into elegant rococo shapes, of which the present bowl is an unusually spirited example.

Blue and White Oval Barber’s Bowl
Delft, circa 1760

Marked with an axe in blue for De Porceleyne Byl (The Porcelain Axe) factory

Painted in the center with peonies and other flowering plants growing around a pierced rock, the fluted rim with meander work reserved with four panels with an exotic bird standing near a pagoda, its lower edge with a neck notch, and its left side with an oval depression for the shaving ball, the foot rim pierced with two holes for suspension.

Length: 28.3 cm. (11.1 in.)

Price: € 6.500 (export US$ 7’750) [See in webshop]

The earliest portable watches appeared in Europe during the sixteenth century, following earlier developments in large mechanical clocks for churches, town halls, and domestic interiors. These early watches were costly objects, admired for their ingenuity and decorative cases, but their accuracy was limited. They were first and foremost luxury possessions, owned by those who could afford both the mechanism and the craftsmanship required to produce them.

A major advance in the history of timekeeping was made by the Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695). In 1656, he developed the pendulum clock, which greatly improved the precision of stationary clocks. Nearly two decades later, in 1675, Huygens devised the spiral balance spring for portable timepieces, an innovation that significantly increased their accuracy and laid the foundation for the modern watch. The first examples were constructed in Paris by the renowned clockmaker Isaac Thuret (c. 1630-1706), whose technical skill transformed Huygens’ theoretical design into a practical reality. Although Huygens and Thuret later became embroiled in a dispute over credit for the invention, their collaboration illustrates the close relationship between scientific innovation and skilled craftsmanship in the development of early watches.

The improved accuracy made possible by the balance spring contributed significantly to the growing popularity of the pocket watch. By the eighteenth century, it had become a visible symbol of refinement, prosperity, and punctuality, carried by merchants, gentlemen, scientists, and travelers alike. As production increased and prices gradually declined, pocket watches became more accessible throughout the century, and by its end they were owned by a broad segment of society, particularly the urban middle classes.

When not being worn, early pocket watches were suspended from decorative wall hooks or furniture-mounted brackets known in France as crochets porte-montre or crochets de montre. Introduced during the seventeenth century, these simple supports allowed owners to display their valuable timepieces within the home while keeping them readily accessible. As pocket watches gained popularity and the desire to display them grew, these functional hooks gradually evolved into more elaborate porte-montres, or watch stands. The majority were produced in wood. An early example is a watch stand from the personal collection of King Louis XIV (1638–1715), of France (Fig. 1). Throughout the eighteenth century, freestanding watch stands were produced not only in carved wood but also in a variety of more luxurious materials, including gilt bronze, silver, and ceramics. While examples in gilt bronze and silver reflected the growing demand for costly luxury goods, ceramic watch stands, despite their inherent fragility, also gained increasing popularity. Their decorative appeal and the opportunity they offered for artistic display evidently outweighed the practical disadvantages of a more delicate material.

It is possible that France, as an important center for the production of watch stands, also played a role in the development of faience examples. A Rouen faience watch stand, dating to around 1730, suggests that ceramic interpretations of the form were already being produced in France during the first half of the eighteenth century. Whether France was the first to produce ceramic watch stands remains uncertain, however, as a Viennese porcelain example dating to around 1725 is also known.

Following this broader European development, Delft potters produced their own tin-glazed earthenware versions of the fashionable watch stand, although no surviving Delft examples appear to predate about 1760. Most extant Delft watch stands date from the Rococo period and reflect the exuberant asymmetry and playful ornamentation characteristic of the style. Among the most popular models is one featuring several young boys climbing over and hanging from the framework of the stand (Fig. 2). Produced in a number of closely related variations, these watch stands are generally unattributed, and the factory responsible for the original design remains unknown.

A particularly elaborate polychrome example with a unique design formerly in the Aronson collection demonstrates how successfully this fashionable model was translated in Delft faience (Fig. 3). Its richly modeled Rococo ornament, lively polychrome decoration, and carefully framed circular aperture transformed a practical support for a pocket watch into an elegant decorative object.

Not all Delft watch stands, however, followed the Rococo idiom. A later blue-and-white example in the Louis XVI style, which is on view in the Princessehof, Leeuwarden (Fig. 4) reflects the changing taste of the final decades of the eighteenth century. The exuberant curves and animated figures of the Rococo gave way to a more restrained and symmetrical design, illustrating how Delft potters continued to adapt the watch stand to contemporary fashions.

As independent objects, watch stands were most commonly displayed on a mantelpiece or commode, where they combined the practical function of supporting a pocket watch with an ornamental role in the interior. During the eighteenth century, however, Delft potters also produced more elaborate compositions in which the watch stand was incorporated into an inkstand, following a fashionable European type (Fig. 5). By combining the watch holder with writing implements, these multifunctional objects found a natural place on the writing desk or in a gentleman’s study, where they united practicality with fashionable display.

Even rarer are ceramic models of pocket watches themselves. Carefully moulded and painted to imitate contemporary metal watches, these trompe l’oeil objects reproduce the characteristic convex case, suspension loop, and painted dial, while one example proudly bear the inscription “DELFT” (Fig. 6). It has generally been assumed that they were intended to occupy the aperture of a watch stand when the owner’s pocket watch was being worn, thereby preserving the visual completeness of the display.

Although ceramic watch models are often associated with Dutch Delftware, the earliest example presently known is an English Delftware model bearing the initials MD and dated 1696. The origin of this remarkable object type therefore remains uncertain. The earliest surviving Delft examples are of a later date, suggesting that the idea may already have been established elsewhere before being adopted by Delft potters.

Surviving ceramic watch models are exceptionally rare. Besides the early English example, only six Dutch Delft examples are currently recorded, all polychrome: one in a German private collection, one in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, an example in the Royal Museum for Art and History in Brussels and three in the Aronson collection (Figs. 6 and 7). Their function has never been documented in contemporary sources, and whether they indeed served as substitutes for pocket watches remains a plausible, though as yet unproven, interpretation.

Although many questions surrounding the origin and function of these remarkable objects remain unanswered, the Delft examples demonstrate how rapidly potters responded to new fashions and technological innovations by translating pocket watches and their accessories into faience. They not only testify to the creativity and ingenuity of Delft potters, but also illustrate the profound cultural significance of the pocket watch during the eighteenth century. Their rarity and the limited number of known examples underscore the need for further study.

Notes

1. Landes, David S. Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983. Revised edition, 2000, p. 87
2. Landes, 2000, p. 116
3. Landes, 2000, p. 125
4. Ibidem
5. Bernd Bauer (ed.), Taschenuhrständer, Pocket-Watch Stands, Porte-montre, Stuttgart, 2024, p. 11
6. Bauer, 2024, p. 240
7. Bauer, 2024, p. 386
8. This stand is depicted in Bauer, 2024 on p. 240
9. Bauer, 2024, p. 299
10. Bauer, 2024, p. 293
11. Depicted in Louis L. Lipski and Michael Archer, Dated English Delftware, Sotheby’s Publications, London, 1984, p. 418, no 1754
12. The first is depicted in: Bauer, 2024, p. 248, no 476 and the second in: D.C. Mees, Kunstnijverheid en Tegels 1600-1800, 1997, p. 194, no B 235

Although Delft potters had begun experimenting with ways to replicate Chinese porcelain as early as the first half of the seventeenth century, it was not until around the 1650s that these efforts achieved real success. By the time Samuel van Eenhoorn acquired De Grieksche A in 1678, the Dutch market was experiencing a growing demand for exotic luxury goods, while imports of Chinese porcelain had become increasingly scarce. Delft factories responded by creating sophisticated tin-glazed earthenware that captured the appearance and prestige of Asian porcelain.

This remarkable vase reflects that pivotal moment in Delftware history. Whether its distinctive pear-shaped form was inspired by a Chinese prototype or was an original creation developed by Van Eenhoorn and his workshop remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that Van Eenhoorn was among the most innovative Delftware producers of his time. During his ownership, De Grieksche A became known for its extraordinary variety of forms, including polygonal bottles, elegant vases, and other ambitious decorative objects.

D2518
Blue and White Pear-Shaped Vase
Delft, circa 1680

Marked SVE 5 in blue for Samuel van Eenhoorn, the owner of De Grieksche A (The Greek A) factory from 1678 until 1685

DIMENSIONS
Height: 26.7 cm. (10.5 in.)

PRICE
€ 9.500 (US$ 11,000 export*) incl. shipping
(excl. local taxes, if applicable)

Coffee: few commodities are as widespread or as deeply woven into daily life. For many people, the day begins with a cup of coffee, accompanied by the vessels and utensils designed for its preparation and enjoyment. The remarkable relationship between coffee and ceramics continues to attract scholarly and public interest. This is reflected in the forthcoming exhibition Coffee? A Dutch History in Ceramics, at the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics in Leeuwarden, which explores the role of coffee in Dutch history through the lens of ceramic production and consumption. This article examines the arrival of coffee in the Dutch Republic and the ways in which the growing coffee culture influenced the development of Delftware during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Coffee had a long history before it entered Dutch society in the seventeenth century. According to one of the many legends surrounding the discovery of coffee, its stimulating effects were first observed by goats. Although the story lacks historical evidence, it remains too compelling to omit. The goats of an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi supposedly became unusually energetic, jumping around, after eating the berries of the coffee shrub. An abbot from a nearby monastery discovered that the berries of the coffee plant provided this energy. He gave them to his monks, enabling them to stay awake longer for prayer and work. This discovery is said to have laid the foundation for coffee culture in the Middle East.

From Ethiopia, coffee plants were brought to Yemen by Arab traders during the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The principal export harbor was Mocha, located on the Red Sea, whose name would later become synonymous with coffee itself. It was here that Coffea arabica was traded, the aromatic coffee variety prized for its refined flavor and relatively limited production. The term “mocha” derives directly from this harbor city, while “arabica” still refers today to the same species of coffee bean that once circulated through the Arab trade networks.

Although Dutch merchants had secured trading rights in Mocha by 1617, the coffee trade to the Dutch Republic developed only gradually. In 1628, the VOC purchased its first known cargo of raw coffee beans in Yemen for trade in Persia, marking the beginning of a long-standing coffee trade within Asia.

During the same period, coffee was steadily making its way westward through the Ottoman Empire into Europe. The Ottomans played an important role in promoting its consumption, and in 1638 coffee was publicly auctioned in Venice for the first time, one of the earliest documented moments at which the beverage entered European commercial life.

The Dutch Republic followed somewhat later. Coffee was first auctioned in Amsterdam in 1661 and quickly gained popularity among urban consumers. Known at the time as cauwe, a word likely derived from the Arabic qahwa, the beverage soon became a familiar feature of city life. Amsterdam records mention a coffeehouse as early as 1663, and by around 1700 no fewer than thirty-two officially registered coffeehouses were operating within a small district of the city center alone (Fig. 1).

For the Dutch East India Company (VOC), importing coffee exclusively from Mocha ultimately proved insufficiently profitable. In 1699, coffee cultivation was introduced by the Dutch on Java, and in 1712 more successful plantations were established in Suriname, both colonies of the Dutch Republic at the time. These developments marked the beginning of an extensive Dutch coffee trade, transforming the Dutch Republic into an important distribution center for Scandinavia and the German territories.

Although coffeehouses played a significant role in introducing the beverage to Dutch consumers, the most significant development occurred during the first half of the eighteenth century when coffee drinking increasingly shifted into the domestic sphere. Falling prices and expanding imports enabled a growing number of households to prepare and serve coffee at home, stimulating the production of specialized coffee wares that transformed coffee consumption into a distinctly domestic ritual.

Coffee pots and mills for grinding coffee beans were initially unknown in the Dutch Republic. The earliest European coffee pots, used primarily in coffeehouses, were tall, slender vessels. Usually made of tin or copper, they were designed to withstand the prolonged heating required for traditional coffee preparation. Their high spouts reflected the practical need to pour coffee while leaving the grounds settled at the bottom of the vessel. Teapots, which contained loose tea leaves that moved freely within the liquid during brewing, generally had lower spouts. This distinction is clearly illustrated by a yellow-ground Delft bowl depicting a coffee pot (right) beside a teapot (left) (Fig. 2).

From around 1680 onward, porcelain coffee pots were imported from Japan and later from China, many of them produced specifically for the Dutch domestic market. Around 1700, the original conical form gradually evolved into the pear-shaped coffee pot inspired by Persian examples, a silhouette that would become the standard European coffee pot throughout the eighteenth century. An early Delft coffee pot in the collection of the Groninger Museum (Fig. 3) demonstrates how quickly Delft potters responded to evolving tastes and new patterns of consumption.

Alongside these forms, the kraantjeskan developed, a vessel fitted with one or more taps from which coffee could be dispensed directly into cups. Similar forms were already known in Europe by the late fifteenth century, when large tap-equipped guild vessels were used for serving beer and wine.

Coffee cups followed a somewhat different course of development. Delft potters had already been producing small cups for tea consumption since the seventeenth century, and these forms could readily be adapted for the serving of coffee. As the consumption of coffee and chocolate increased, taller and more cylindrical forms appeared that were better suited to these beverages.

VOC records indicate that at least three different types of coffee cups were in use: double ware, large Dutch coffee ware, and single Dutch coffee ware. The latter measured approximately 6.5 cm (2.6 in.) in height and 7.5 cm (2.9 in.) in diameter. These dimensions correspond closely to surviving late seventeenth and early eighteenth century coffee cups, which were generally smaller than the vessels commonly used for coffee today. An interesting example is found in a set of four cups fitted with a handle, produced by Pieter Adriaensz. Kocx around 1700, although it remains unclear whether they were intended for the consumption of coffee or chocolate (Fig. 4). Probate inventories nevertheless suggest that cups were frequently used interchangeably for tea, coffee, and chocolate, indicating that distinctions between these beverages were not always reflected in everyday household practice.

As coffee drinking spread beyond the coffeehouse and into the domestic sphere, Dutch potters responded to the growing demand for specialized coffee wares. An archival source from 1695 records the shipment of Hollants Porceleyn coffee pots from Delft to The Hague. Since Hollants Porceleyn was the contemporary term for Delft faience, this shipment provides one of the earliest documentary indications that Delft potters were producing coffee pots by the 1690s. Given the time required for the introduction and commercial distribution of new forms, production likely began somewhat earlier.

Delft potters adapted models that had originally been developed in metal and porcelain. A Delftware coffee pot with tap, preserved in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag demonstrates how functional metal prototypes were transformed into fashionable ceramic table wares (Fig. 5). Another model, preserved in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is clearly derived from contemporary metal coffee pots and features a cylindrical body with a straight spout (Fig. 6). This type also occurs with a reinforcing bridge connecting the upper part of the spout to the body of the pot, providing additional stability.

Yet Delftware coffee pots were produced in smaller numbers than metal examples. Metal vessels remained more practical for daily use because they could withstand direct heat and frequent handling, whereas Delftware coffee pots were fragile and likely intended primarily for serving coffee at the table rather than brewing it. This may also help explain why comparatively few Delftware coffee pots survive today.

The growing popularity of coffee also found expression in Delftware decoration, as is reflected in Fig. 1. Next to this example, is a pair of polychrome vases made at Het Morieanshooft (the Moors Head) factory during the directorship of Rochus Hoppesteyn depicts elegantly dressed figures gathered around a table furnished with cups and a clearly recognizable coffee pot (Fig. 7). Similar imagery appears on a Hoppesteyn vase in the collection of the Moritzburg Art Museum in Halle, where two distinct coffee pots are represented within an elaborate interior scene. Such depictions are particularly valuable because they preserve visual evidence of contemporary coffee wares that may no longer survive and demonstrate that coffee drinking had become sufficiently familiar to serve as a recognizable decorative motif.

During the eighteenth century, the rococo style came to exert a strong influence on Delftware production. Coffee pots, like many other ceramic forms, became less rigid in appearance and adopted more fluid silhouettes and organic contours. Among the few surviving Delftware coffee pots, one of the finest examples is a large polychrome coffee pot and cover in our collection (Fig. 8). Its elegant pear-shaped form, enriched with rococo scrollwork, reflects the mature European coffee pot type that developed during the eighteenth century. A closely related example, decorated in a slightly different palette, is preserved in the collection of the Princessehof Museum.

Very few Delftware coffee wares survive when compared to the relatively large numbers of tea wares produced during the same period. This disparity may reflect differences in the preparation of the two beverages. Tea was typically infused in a teapot and served directly from it, making ceramic vessels ideally suited to the process. Coffee, by contrast, was often prepared over a fire and required more durable equipment. Metal coffee pots therefore remained more practical and widely used throughout the eighteenth century, while Delftware examples were likely intended primarily for serving coffee at the table and displaying refinement and taste. Produced in smaller numbers than tea wares, they remain comparatively rare today. Yet precisely because of their scarcity, surviving Delftware coffee pots provide valuable insight into the growing popularity of coffee in the Dutch Republic and the ways in which Delft potters adapted their products to accommodate changing patterns of consumption.

Notes

1. On view from October 10, 2026, until August 29, 2027.
2. Pim Reijnders and Thera Wijsenbeek, Koffie in Nederland. Vier eeuwen cultuurgeschiedenis (Delft/Zutphen, 1994), p. 12.
3. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 19.
4. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 11.
5. Rudi Matthee, “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 37, no. 1 (1994), p. 2.
6. Anne E. C. McCants, “Poor Consumers as Global Consumers: The Diffusion of Tea and Coffee Drinking in the Eighteenth Century,” Economic History Review 61 (Special Issue, 2008), pp. 175–176.
7. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 43.
8. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 24.
9. Marijke de Koning, Henk Snelders, and Els Stronks, “Niet zo beschaafd als we dachten: Koffiehuizen, sociabilisering en literaire socialisatie in Amsterdam, c. 1685–c. 1785,” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 139, no. 1 (2023), p. 40.
10. Judith te Kronnie, “From Elite Brew to Everyday Fuel: The Evolution of Dutch Coffee Culture in the 18th Century,” Public History Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, September 27, 2024.
11. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 55.
12. Anna Preußinger, Material Culture in Early Modern Amsterdam Coffeehouses: The Sociability and Aesthetics of Porcelain Coffee Ware (Leiden University, 2022), p. 31.
13. Ibid.
14. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 75.
15. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 58.
16. J. de Kleyn, “De kraantjeskan met conische vorm, een oud type koffiekan,” Antiek, no. 6 (1972/1973), pp. 435–436.
17. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 91.
18. Preußinger, 2022, p. 37.
19. Reijnders and Wijsenbeek, 1994, p. 75.
20. Ibid.

]]> https://aronson.com/delftware-coffee-utensils-the-rise-of-coffee-drinking-in-the-dutch-republic/feed/ 0 https://aronson.com/d2621-pair-blue-white-cruet-set/ https://aronson.com/d2621-pair-blue-white-cruet-set/#_comments Thu, 07 May 2026 11:02:54 +0000 https://aronson.com/?p=80936 Each month, we highlight a special object from the Aronson Antiquairs collection. This month, we are pleased to present this blue and white cruet set.

Among the most elegant expressions of Delft ceramics produced around 1700 are objects intended for the dining table. This refined cruet set, made at the celebrated De Roos (The Rose) factory in Delft, reflects the growing sophistication of dining culture in the Dutch Republic at the turn of the eighteenth century.

The set comprises two gracefully modeled covered vessels, preserved together with their original fitted stand. Intended for the presentation of condiments during formal meals, such ensembles combined utility with decorative refinement and formed an important part of fashionable table display within affluent Dutch households.

Marked with an R in blue for De Roos, the set belongs to a period in which Delft potters achieved remarkable artistic and technical refinement. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, dining customs became increasingly elaborate, influenced by French court culture and the emergence of multi-course service. Decorative table accessories gained prominence as symbols of taste and civility, encouraging Delft factories to create coordinated ensembles of exceptional elegance.

The present cruet set demonstrates the delicacy and assurance characteristic of the finest Delft production of the period. The vessels are distinguished by their elegant silhouettes, with elongated necks, scrolling handles, and finely curved spouts that lend the composition both balance and vitality. Their forms reveal careful consideration not only of practical function, but also of visual harmony.

The cobalt-blue decoration is executed with remarkable finesse upon a luminous white tin-glazed ground. Floral sprays, scrolling foliage, and playful putti animate the surfaces with a sense of lightness and rhythm. The painter skillfully balances richly ornamented passages with areas of open white ground, allowing the decoration to enhance rather than overwhelm the elegant contours of the vessels.

Cruet sets of this type are comparatively rare, particularly when preserved complete with their original stand and covers. Their survival provides valuable insight into the rituals of dining and domestic display during the Dutch seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when even functional tableware was designed to contribute to an atmosphere of refinement and cultivated taste.

More than three centuries after its creation, the cruet set continues to convey the elegance and sophistication that once adorned elite Dutch interiors. It remains both a functional object and a compelling work of art, a beautifully preserved example of early Delft craftsmanship at its finest.

D2621
Blue and White Cruet Set
Delft, circa 1700

Marked R in blue for De Roos (The Rose) factory

DIMENSIONS
Height: 18.5 cm. (7.3 in.)

PRICE
€ 11.500 (US$ 13,500 export*) incl. shipping
(excl. local taxes, if applicable)

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, dining in Europe became increasingly formalized. Meals were arranged with growing attention to order, symmetry, and display, a development closely linked to the adoption of dining à la française, a style associated with the court of Louis XIV. Dinners were organized in successive courses, beginning with cold dishes, followed by hot preparations, and concluding with preserved fruits and sweetmeats, a precursor to the modern dessert. Dishes were set out in balanced compositions across the table, from which guests served themselves. In this setting, tableware played an active role, as each course introduced a new combination of functional and decorative objects.

Within this context, cruet sets provided a practical means of serving liquid condiments, most notably oil and vinegar, directly at the table. Their presence also signals a broader shift in taste. Flavors became lighter and less dependent on heavy seasoning in the kitchen, while diners were given greater control to adjust their food according to individual preference. Initially produced in metal and glass, these sets soon offered Delft potters an opportunity to explore both form and decoration within a clearly defined functional type.

Strictly speaking, the term cruet refers to the individual vessel, a small bottle with a narrow neck and stopper, rather than to the ensemble as a whole. The supporting structure is more accurately described as a stand or frame. The direct origins of such vessels most likely lie outside the domestic sphere. In medieval liturgical practice, small containers known as ampullae were used to hold wine and water for the Eucharist, typically presented as a pair. These were sometimes marked with the letters “V” for vinum and “A” for aqua to distinguish their contents. They were most often made of metal, while glass examples became more common from the Renaissance onward.

Although their appearance in the seventeenth century may seem novel, the combined use of oil and vinegar has a much longer history. An early example of a joined cruet is found in a Roman or Syrian glass vessel with a double body (Fig. 1). This type is often described as an oil and vinegar bottle, although its precise function remains uncertain.

By the early medieval period, however, the pairing of oil and vinegar is securely attested in elite contexts. At the court of Charlemagne (742-814), meals could include vegetables or salads prepared with oil, vinegar, and generous quantities of pepper. This use primarily took place in the kitchen, as part of the preparation of dishes, rather than at the table, as would become customary in later periods.

Seen in this light, the growing presence of oil and vinegar in Northern European dining during the seventeenth century does not represent an entirely new development, but rather a transformation in the way they were presented and used. No longer confined to the kitchen, they became part of the table setting itself, presented in dedicated vessels and ultimately giving rise to the cruet set as a distinct and recognizable object.

A late sixteenth-century oil and vinegar vessel in Medici porcelain may represent one of the earliest European examples intended for use at the table (Fig. 2). Marked with the letters “O” and “A,” referring to oleum and acetum, it invites comparison with the earlier liturgical practice of marking paired vessels. While a direct connection cannot be firmly established, the parallel suggests a continuity in the visual language used to distinguish liquids. At the same time, the object points to the emergence of a comparable use in a secular and more refined dining context. By this date, such vessels were no longer confined to liturgical settings, but were also incorporated into the material culture of the table. Its execution in costly Medici porcelain underscores both the novelty of the form and its association with elite settings.

Over the course of the seventeenth century, cruet sets became part of increasingly elaborate table arrangements. Their emergence in a courtly context is often linked to Cardinal Mazarin (1602-1661), whose role at the court of Louis XIV (1638-1715) has given rise to the suggestion that he played a decisive part in their dissemination. Such claims, however, remain difficult to substantiate. While it is clear that Mazarin acted as an important intermediary for Italian taste within France, direct evidence for his role in introducing or popularizing cruet sets is lacking.

A small pouring vessel listed in his inventory nevertheless offers a more tangible point of reference. The so-called burette, recorded in 1644 and now preserved in the Louvre, demonstrates that refined vessels for controlled pouring were already present within elite circles at an early date (Fig. 3).

The development of cruet sets should be understood within a broader European context, in which forms and ideas circulated between different regions. The earliest Dutch example for secular use is a silver set dating from 1642, reflecting this wider exchange (Fig. 4). Made by the silversmith Anthony Grill, who originated from Augsburg but was active in Amsterdam, it consists of a tray with a detachable frame, an oil vessel, two casters, and a salt. A closely comparable set appears in a later print made for a lottery held in Durgerdam, near Amsterdam, organized to raise funds after a devastating fire in 1689 (Fig. 5).

Delft cruet stands appear to derive from contemporary metal prototypes, such as those attributed to the silversmith Anthony Grill. The vessels are raised on a foot, fitted with a handle, and conceived as bridge-spouted ewers, the spout set low on the body and connected to the neck by a supporting strut.

Delft potters translated these elements into faience, adapting both form and function to suit ceramic production. This development is exemplified by one of the earliest known Delft faience cruet stands, produced in the late seventeenth century at De Metaale Pot (The Metal Pot) factory under the directorship of Lambertus Cleffius, owner from 1679 to 1691. This blue and white set forms part of an extensive dinner service commissioned for Prince Wenzel Ferdinand Lobkowicz of Bílina (1656-1697), now known as the Lobkowicz service. The cruet stand was conceived to hold three vessels: two bottles intended for oil and vinegar, and a third container, most likely for mustard. The ensemble offers an exceptional insight into the level of sophistication achieved by De Metaale Pot as early as the 1680s.

In addition to the Lobkowicz service, another important early blue and white set, attributed to Frederik van Frytom (1632-1702) on account of its finely painted landscapes, and possibly also produced at De Metaale Pot, follows a similar model, with accommodation for three vessels. A further early example, now in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, is attributed to De Witte Ster (The White Star) factory and bears a coat of arms, suggesting a noble provenance.

Production at De Metaale Pot continued under Lambertus van Eenhoorn, successor to Lambertus Cleffius, who owned the company from 1691 to 1721. From this period, blue and white cruet stands are known that were designed to accommodate four or five vessels. A late seventeenth-century example of such production is a cruet set marked IVB for Johannes Verburg, comprising a stand for four elements, including two bottles for oil and vinegar, a mustard pot, and a caster, now part of a private collection collection (Fig. 6).

The factory De Grieksche A (The Greek A) was likewise engaged in the production of cruet stands during this period, under the directorship of Adrianus Kocx from 1687 to 1701. A notable blue and white set of six elements, comprising a stand, two bottles, a large caster, a smaller example, and a mustard pot, is preserved in the Amsterdam Museum (Fig. 7). A comparable blue and white set, marked APK and bearing the coat of arms and monogram of the Danish baron Iver Juel Høg and his wife, indicates that production of this model continued under Adrianus’ son, Pieter, who owned the company from 1701 until his death in 1703. As Iver Juel Høg had already died in 1683, the commission was likely made by his widow, Helle Nielsdatter Trolle (1657-1722).

In the eighteenth century, the use of cruet sets became more widespread, extending beyond elite circles to a broader public. This development allowed for the introduction of new models and color schemes. In addition to blue and white, Imari and so-called cashmere palettes were employed (Fig. 8). While the spouted form remained in use, a model with a rounded body and a wider neck fitted with a pouring lip appears to have gained particular popularity (Fig. 9).

On the basis of extant examples, it may be cautiously suggested that the earliest Delft cruet sets comprised between three and five vessels arranged within a stand. As is often the case with new dining practices, such sets were likely conceived as part of larger services and intended for use within aristocratic, and possibly royal, contexts. Over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, these more elaborate configurations were gradually simplified, and cruet sets were increasingly reduced to two bottles intended solely for oil and vinegar.

The use of oil and vinegar sets increased over the course of the eighteenth century. Extant examples indicate that such wares were produced at several Delft factories, including De Witte Ster, De Metaale Pot, De Grieksche A, De Drie Posteleyne Astonne, De Twee Scheepjes, De Romeyn, and In ’t Fortuyn, demonstrating the extent to which this form had become firmly established within Delft faience production.

Notes

1. Acqui Newling and Scott Hill, Pass the Cruet, Sydney Living Museums, February 12, 2015, published online: https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/cruet-sets/index.html
2. John McClintock and James Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. 1 (A–B), New York, Harper & Brothers, 1896, p. 206.
3. Wina Born, Eten door de eeuwen. De geschiedenis van de culinaire cultuur, Baarn, Bosch & Keuning, 1989, p. 93.
4. Besides the example illustrated here, a comparable model is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 12.717).
5. Rijksmuseum Bulletin, “Keuze uit de aanwinsten,” 1997, p. 157.
6. Marion S. van Aken-Fehmers and Loet A. Schledorn, Delfts aardewerk. Geschiedenis van een nationaal product, Zwolle, 2001, pp. 53–54.
7. Illustrated in A. Vecht, Frederik van Frytom (1632–1702). Life and Work of a Dutch Pottery Decorator, Amsterdam, 1968, pp. 74–75.
8. A stand with five compartments, lacking its vessels and marked LVE for Lambertus van Eenhoorn, owner of De Metaale Pot (The Metal Pot) from 1691 to 1721, was sold at Christie’s Amsterdam on November 2, 2005, as lot 415. Another holder for four vessels, marked LVE G 24, is in the collection of the Kulturen Museum in Lund (inv. no. KM 9342).
9. Cruet set, Attributed to De Witte Ster (the White Star) factory, Delft, circa 1700, Collection of the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum (inv. no. A 2249 a-f (KN&V))
10. Ulla Houkjær, Tin-Glazed Earthenware from the Netherlands, France and Germany 1600–1800, Copenhagen, Design Museum Danmark, 2016, p. 160.

This exceptional pair of Delft trays presents a refined and politically charged homage to Prince William IV, Stadtholder of the United Provinces, and his consort, Princess Anne of Hanover. Executed in a deep cobalt blue, the trays combine courtly portraiture with rich ornamental detail, embodying both the technical sophistication of Delft potters and the broader cultural significance of the House of Orange-Nassau in the mid-18th century.

Each tray is centered with a finely painted bust-length portrait, set within an architectural window opening that lends the composition both depth and a sense of staged grandeur. Princess Anne is depicted with elaborate coiffure, wearing pearl earrings and a sumptuous gown, her ermine-trimmed mantle emphasizing her royal dignity. Behind her, a landscape of trees and clouds is framed by a classical pillar, suggesting both cultivated taste and dynastic stability. The upper register is adorned with stylized acanthus leaves and a harp—perhaps an allusion to harmony and refinement—while beneath, a banderole identifies her as ANNA VAN BRUNSWYK LUNENBURG / Prinsesfe van Oranje enz. enz. enz. The composition is flanked by orange branches, alongside a lion holding a bundle of arrows and the head of a unicorn, reinforcing themes of sovereignty and legitimacy.

The companion tray depicts Prince William IV, shown wearing a short powdered wig, a sash, and an ermine-lined mantle over his embroidered uniform. The insignia of the Order of the Garter—conferred upon him in 1733—is prominently displayed, reflecting his international prestige. He holds a coat of arms featuring a lion rampant with sword and arrows, a potent symbol of Dutch unity and authority. His portrait is similarly framed within a window opening, crowned by acanthus ornamentation, a chain with a pendant of Saint George and the dragon, and a command staff. The banderole below reads WILLEM CAREL HENDRIK FRISO / Erfstadhouder der Vereenigde Nederlanden, accompanied by an orange branch.

Both trays are bordered by an upturned rim decorated with a blue-ground diaper pattern, rhythmically interrupted by floral panels. The undersides are raised on four bracket feet, a distinctive feature that enhances both their elegance and functionality.

Historically, these trays commemorate a significant moment in Dutch history. William IV (1711–1751), born posthumously to Johan Willem Friso, became Stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen at birth and later, in 1747, the first hereditary General Stadtholder of all seven United Provinces. His marriage in 1734 to Princess Anne of Hanover, daughter of King George II of Great Britain, symbolized a powerful Anglo-Dutch alliance. Though his tenure was brief, William IV is remembered for administrative reforms, including the abolition of indirect taxation.

The portraits are directly based on a print dated 1750 by Pieter Tanjé, after a drawing by Gerard Sanders, a German-born court painter active in Düsseldorf and later Rotterdam. This translation from print to ceramic illustrates the close interplay between graphic media and Delftware production, as well as the widespread dissemination of royal imagery through decorative arts.

As a pair, these trays carry an added layer of meaning: together they celebrate not only individual status but dynastic unity. Objects such as these would have functioned as both decorative showpieces and expressions of political allegiance, reflecting the pride and identity of their owners within the socio-political landscape of the Dutch Republic.

D1734
Pair of Blue and White Royal Portrait Trays
Delft, circa 1750

Each painted in the center with a bust-length portrait, one depicting Princess Anne elaborately coifed and wearing pearl earrings and a lavish gown with an ermine fur mantel, placed in a window opening with a background of trees, clouds and a pillar, the top of the window decorated with stylized acanthus leaves and a harp, beneath her a banderole inscribed ANNA VAN BRUNSWYK LUNENBURG / Prinsesfe van Oranje enz. enz. enz., flanked by orange branches with on one side a lion holding a bundle of arrows and on the other side the head of a unicorn; the other depicting Prince William IV wearing a short light wig, a sash and mantel with ermine fur collar, and the Order of the Garter on his embroidered uniform, and holding the coat of arms with a lion rampant with sword and a bundle of arrows, also placed in a window opening with a background of trees and clouds, the top of the window decorated with stylized acanthus leaves, a chain with a pendant in the form of Saint George and the dragon and a command staff having on a ribbon, the banderole beneath him inscribed WILLEM CAREL HENDRIK FRISO / Erfstadhouder der Vereenigde Nederlanden, and an orange branch, the upturned rim with a blue ground diaper work border interrupted with floral panels, and the underside raised on four bracket feet.

DIMENSIONS
Heights: both 27.2 cm. (10.7 in.);
Widths: both 27.6 cm. (10.9 in.)

PRICE
€ 18.000 (US$ 21.000 export*) incl. shipping
(excl. local taxes, if applicable)