Homenews

The Museum of Fine Arts in Reims, France opened its doors in the city’s town hall in 1794. The foundation of the collection was donated in 1752 by Antoine Ferrand de Monthelon, the founder of the city’s school of drawing. Many other artworks in the museum were among those seized during the French Revolution in 1789. The museum’s first curator was Nicolas Bergeat, who guarded works of art annexed from the Catholic institutions in Reims.

Over the years the collection grew and the town hall of Reims could no longer house all of the artworks. In 1908 the city purchased the former Abbey of Saint-Denis to house a portion of the collection. The abbey was first constructed during the 9th century under the direction of the Archbishop of Reims. The building served many other purposes before it was transformed into a museum, such as the French Directory’s headquarters, barracks for Russian occupation troops in 1814 and 1815, and a grand seminary in 1822.

The Museum of Fine Arts has a vast collection of artworks that span five centuries of European and French art, from the Renaissance through the Art Deco, the Grand Siècle of the seventeenth century and Impressionism. There are over one hundred ceramic objects on display, including a considerable number of Delft earthenware. The wide variety of Delftware cannot be missed, from vases, dishes, plaques and jugs. 

One outstanding feature of the collection is a ‘Persian Blue’ Jug marked De Paauw (The Peacock) Factory. De Paauw (The Peacock) Factory is most renowned for its blue glazes. A beautiful example, already mentioned in an earlier newsletter, is a spice bowl with a blue glaze and white decoration. This unusual group of Delftware with blue grounds was inspired by the blue and yellow ground ceramics from Nevers, France. Between 1660-1680, faience makers in Nevers produced wares with either an opaque yellow or blue glaze, covered with delicate lace-like decorations. Of course, this is the reason these beautiful blue earthenware pieces are also called ‘Nevers bleu’.

Groot Constantia is a homestead and Wine Museum in Cape Town, South Africa that dates back to 1685. It was one of the first commercial wine farms in South Africa. Today, the house and museum chronicle the past to present including the legacy of slavery. There is a particular focus on the eighteenth to early nineteenth century period when affluent farmers tended the land. From 1778 to 1885, the Cloet family owned the farm.

The wine museum shows the historical wine cellars and exhibits wine storage and drinking vessels from antiquity to the twentieth century. The Cloetes utilized the cellars below the house as a place to store high-quality wine bottles, vegetables, and fruit. Slaves and later house staff occupied the rooms with windows as places to live and work.

The homestead offers a glimpse into the life of an effective Cape farmer from the eighteenth to the late nineteenth century with its exhibition of furniture, paintings, textiles, pottery, brass, and copper ware. The homestead is made up of many rooms. After entering the entrance hall you quickly reach the study room, where men congregated to socialize and smoke pipes. The furniture is Neo-Classical or Louis XVI style, and the items in the room range in period from the early eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century. The room contains writing desks, writing furniture and Chinese and Delft-made earthenware. 

The homestead also exhibits Dutch heritage in the kitchen, where a typical Frisian tall clock is displayed. This clock was made during the eighteenth and nineteenth century in Friesland. 

Edam is a small city North of Amsterdam, famous for the small round cheeses bearing the name of the city. The town was founded around a dam crossing the river E or IJe near the Zuiderzee (currently known as the IJsselmeer). Around 1230 the channel was dammed, and goods had to be transferred from vessel to vessel. The inhabitants of Edam levied a toll, which enabled Edam to grow economically. Edam acquired city rights in 1357 by Count Willem V. A new harbor was established, which connected it to other major Dutch cities as well as international trade.

Fishing, timber trade and shipbuilding became interesting and flourishing businesses for the coastal city of Edam. By the sixteenth century there were as many as 33 wharves in Edam, a very high number compared to the relative small size of the city. The local economy was further boosted by a market held three times a year. In fact, Edam was one of the more important towns of North Holland, vying with chambers of the VOC (Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie) in Enkhuizen, Hoorn and Amsterdam. However, the shipbuilding industry declined at the end of the seventeenth century when Emperor Charles V built lock gates to protect the city from flooding. The gates caused the harbor to be bogged down, and it was eventually closed. The shipbuilding and timber trade then moved to Amsterdam and the Zaan region in the second half of the seventeenth century. With the reclaimed land in Edam, the city transformed itself into a thriving regional center for the cattle trade and its famous cheese. After the middle of the eighteenth century, the economy of Edam stagnated. This was reinforced by the construction of the Noord-Hollands Kanaal (1824), which meant that ships no longer passed through the city.

There are many treasures from the golden age of Edam, many of which are preserved and displayed in the Edam museum. The museum is one of the oldest institutions in North Holland, and it is housed in a beautiful late Gothic-style merchant’s house. The structure, built between 1540-1550, is the oldest brick-built house in Edam. In 1893, the Edam city council purchased the building and it subsequently underwent an extensive restoration overseen by Pierre Cuypers (original architect of the Rijksmuseum) and Victor de Stuers. The museum opened in 1895 and it continues to operate today. A second location is housed on the first floor of Edam’s old town hall, dating from 1737. The building was renovated in the seventeenth century and furnished with a luxurious new interior, which has largely been unchanged since. This space, including the historic Mayor’s Chamber, is the setting for regular short term exhibitions.

The floating cellar is a famous feature of Edam Museum. The cellar is a loose container that floats on the groundwater. Due to tidal movements of the sea, (the museum is located on Dam Square, the location of what used to be a (sea) lock) the Zuiderzee influences the groundwater level. Because the basement moves with the water, it never floods. Floating cellars are not unique; many are found in Edam and especially in Amsterdam. However, the floating cellar in Edam Museum is the only one in the Netherlands that is publicly accessible.

A significant part of the museum collection was acquired by Herman Beek, the so called ‘Artbaker’, as he was a baker and antique dealer in Edam. According to legend, he amassed his collection, among other things, by having his customers pay with antiques for the bread he sold. A great deal of his collection was either sold or donated to the Edam Museum by the Van Beek family.

The collection contains a wide range of objects related to the history of Edam and beyond, including a group of Delftware objects. One interesting piece is a Delft dish made in the second half of the eighteenth century, which the museum acquired from Aronson Antiquairs. The imagery on the dish is very much related to the significance of Edam as a ‘Cheese city.’ The dish is painted in the center with a cheesemonger wearing a large hat, standing behind his counter and slicing a large wheel of cheese with a large knife. Above his head are eight cheeses on a shelf suspending a scale, and a smaller shelf of two cheeses above four wooden barrels to his right. The front of the counter is inscribed “Maggiel Wiegers Visser”, and the rim with a border of floral lappets alternating with large demi-blossoms and foliate scrolls, the footrim of each pierced with a hole for suspension. The plate bears no mark, which was very common for special orders like the present dish.

According to archival material, Maggiel Wiegers Visser was born in 1768 in Woudsend, Friesland. Unlike his male family members, he wasn’t involved in eel trade, or eel trade related business, but he started a dairy trade, selling butter, milk and cheese in his shop in Woudsend. After his marriage in 1790, he continued his business in Grouw. The plate was probably ordered in Delft as a promotional or commemorative gift, by Maggiel himself or someone else.

There are four similar plates known: one in ‘Het Scheepvaart Museum’ in Sneek, one in ‘Het Openlucht Museum’, Arnhem, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford and one in a private collection in The Netherlands.

The Freer Gallery of Art is located in Washington DC. This museum is a part of the Smithsonian Institution together with the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. 

The Gallery was founded by Charles Lang Freer, a railcar manufacturer and a self-taught art connoisseur. Freer had a large collection of Asian and American art, which he donated to the nation. He discussed this gift informally with President Theodore Roosevelt a year earlier. In addition to the art objects, the donation also included funding for a building, and for the study and acquisition of Eastern, Egyptian and Near Eastern visual arts.

Freer imposed a number of conditions on his donation. He believed that the museum should be easily accessible to scientists at all times. Freer also stipulated in the bequest that he would exercise full curatorial control over the collection until his death. The Smithsonian was initially hesitant about the requirements, but Roosevelt’s intervention allowed the project to go ahead. However, Freer died before the construction and establishment of the museum was completed.

In 1923, the Freer Gallery of Art was opened to the public. It was the first Smithsonian museum that was based on a bequest from a private collection.

Various objects are on display in the museum, including Chinese paintings and ceramics, Korean pottery, Japanese byōbu, Indian and Persian manuscripts, and Buddhist sculpture. The collection also features a number of Delft earthenware fragments, which show the history of Delftware. 

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is located in the beautiful city of Toronto. The institution is Canada’s largest museum and is home to thirteen million artworks. The museum opened in March 1914, and originally consisted of five separate museums: ROM of Archeology, ROM of Paleontology, ROM of Mineralogy, ROM of Zoology and ROM of Geology. In 1955 these five museums became one. Since these milestones, the museum has continued to expand; new exhibition spaces were built, a new library was added, and more research was done. On June 3, 2007, the museum opened a new building, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, which was a gift from Lee-Chin. The building, designed by Daniel Liebeskind, was inspired by the museum’s mineral collection.

The ROM collection consists of art that spans continents and time periods. It includes religious objects, textiles, costumes, and prehistoric mammals. In the European Decorative Arts Collection, there is a group of majolica from the northern Netherlands. One highlight is a beautiful thirteen inch charger with floral motifs.

Dutch majolica is the forerunner of Delftware. In the late sixteenth century potters of Italian origin migrated from Antwerp to the Northern Netherlands due to religious and political turmoil (the Fall of Antwerp in 1585). These potters settled in cities such as Haarlem and Delft, bringing with them their knowledge and skills in making Italian- style tin-glazed earthenwares (maiolica). The early Netherlandish majolica production consisted mainly of dishes and porridge bowls covered on the front in an opaque white tin glaze, and on the reverse with a less costly transparent lead glaze. The decoration of these pieces in either European patterns or imitations of ‘kraak’ porcelain (the first type of Chinese export porcelain from the Wanli period [1573-1620] to be imported into the Netherlands), or a combination of both, was painted predominantly in blue, yellow, orange or ochre, green and manganese, colors derived from mineral oxides.

Majolica can be distinguished from Delftware not only by the clear glaze on the reverse, revealing the buff-colored body of the clay, but also by the three small spots of glaze damage on the front (prunt marks). These were created by the stacking of the pieces on top of one another in the kiln, separated by ceramic triangles that had to be broken away after the firing. In that process, the points where the triangles had rested would leave their mark: a small unglazed scar.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is the oldest art museum in Texas and first opened its doors in 1924. The original building was designed by architect William Ward Watkin in the Greek Neoclassical style. In the years that followed, the museum expanded its collection and buildings. Today, there are three buildings that house the museum collection.

The collection grew with the addition of an important group of American and European oil paintings bequeathed by George M. Dickinson. Many other benefactors followed Dickinson’s example and donated artwork to the museum. By 1970, the museum had 12,000 objects in its collection. Today, the collection includes approximately 70,000 objects from very diverse mediums, including Italian Renaissance, French Impressionism, American art, post-war paintings and sculpture and American and European decorative arts.

The museum has a very special and rare Delftware object in its collection, a dinner plate with the Royal Arms of England and Cipher for James II made in 1698 and marked for De Paauw (The Peacock) factory. De Paauw (The Peacock) factory was established in 1651. The factory building was painted with the founding year and a beautiful blue and black peacock on its facade. The symbol became a trademark for the factory and was repeatedly used as a decorative motif on objects. When the factory first opened, it operated with only one oven. During the eighteenth century another oven was added. This plate was made under Petronella van Dijssel whom operated the factory from 1680 onwards. Dated Delftware objects are rare, which makes this plate even more interesting. 

The British Museum in London opened its doors in 1759. The founding represents a milestone as it was the first national public museum in the world. Each year the museum welcomes over six million visitors from all over the world.

The collection was first housed in the Montagu House, which was a seventeenth century mansion built by P. Puget. By 1823, the collection had outgrown its original building and required a larger headquarters. Sir Robert Smirke designed a new neoclassical museum building, which remains in use today. In 1857, Smirke’s brother, Sydney Smirke, designed the Reading Room. This room is inspired by the domed Pantheon in Rome. Karl Marx among many others came to visit this marvelous Reading Dome.

The British Museum is home is a treasure trove of special objects, from paintings, to books, and even mummies. The Rosetta Stone is one of the many highlights of the collection. The museum also has a special collection of Delftware that includes figures, vases, jugs and many plates including a special series painted by Sir James Thornhill, an English painter of decorative wall and ceiling paintings, portraits and scenes from history and mythology. His works include the inside of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and the “Painted Hall” at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich. In 1711 he was in Delft and painted a series of twelve plates with the signs of the zodiac. These plates were made by De Grieksche A (The Greek A) factory under Johanna van der Heul, the widow of Pieter Adriaensz. Kocx.

The Saint Louis Art Museum is located in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri. The museum was founded in 1879 as the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts. The founder aspired for the institution to not only collect and showcase fine art, but to meet educational goals as well. The school educated artists and craftspeople, and hands-on studio work was offered in addition to art history classes. What began as a collection of assorted plaster casts, electrotype reproductions, and other examples of good design in various media rapidly gave way to a great and varied collection of original works of art spanning five millennia and six continents.

The wide range of arts in the museum collection goes back to antiquity and also represents the present. The collection includes modern art by European Masters as Gauguin and Picasso as well as twentieth-century German paintings. The museum collection goes beyond European art; it also contains finely handwoven Turkish Rugs and an Egyptian Mummy. 

Although the Saint Louis Art Museum has only a small collection of Delftware, there is a very impressive object in the group: a massive blue and white chinoiserie dish. The dish is painted with two fierce spotted leopards and two other exotic beasts being observed by a Chinese dignitary and two attendants. One of the attendants supports a flag before a garden fence on the left, and five figures on the right, one beneath a parasol and the others holding or brandishing various implements. They all stand before a pavilion, the foreground with leafy plants, and beyond the activity a tree amidst shrubbery, rocks and ‘clouds.’ The foot rim is pierced with two holes for suspension in the glaze vat. 

The Hospice Comtesse is located in the historic heart of Lille. Founded in 1237 by Countess Jeanne of Flanders, the former Notre-Dame hospital welcomed the sick and pilgrims. The institution was created when a large number of hospital asylums were founded during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Today, these walls now house the city’s art and history museum.

After the French Revolution, the buildings of the Hospice Comtesse were used to house orphans such as “Les Bleuets” and elderly invalid, “Les Vieux-Hommes.” It was in 1940 that the hospital and assistance vocation of the Hospice Comtesse came to an end. By 1923, the buildings of the Hospice Comtesse were classified as Historic Monuments, and a museum of regional history and ethnography was created in the 1950s by the municipality. 

The city of Lille was once home to important trade corporations, and several museum objects pay tribute to this merchant history, such as traditional banners and the painting La Procession de Lille by François Watteau. The works of Watteau, as well as his father, Louis Watteau, are precious testimonies of the city and of the life in Lille under the Ancien Régime.

The museum also houses a wide variety of art in addition to their beautiful, well known paintings. Textiles, such as religious clothing can be found in the museum as well as old musical instruments, for example the violin, guitar and mandolin.

The ceramic collection covers a period from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. The oldest pieces come from archaeological digs in the region. The collection is made up of glazed earthenware pieces, utilitarian and decorative, beautiful earthenware from different production centers, religious-themed ceramics and earthenware tiles from houses in Old Lille. Delftware forms a small part of this collection. One example is a plaque from 1748 and a cuspidor from the eighteenth century.

The Toledo Museum of Art is located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. Edward Drummond Libbey, a Toledo glassmaker, founded the museum in 1901. Over the years the museum expanded by adding multiple buildings to house its large collection of glass, nineteenth and twentieth century European and American art, as well as Renaissance, Greek, Roman and Japanese art.  

Toledo is well-known as the Glass Capital of the United States. Edward Drummond Libbey wanted to improve the education of local craftsmen and designers by assembling a model glass collection. Not only did he assemble a great collection, he promoted training and exhibited new works. Libbey also supported European glass, and purchased 53 European Renaissance and Baroque glasses for his collection. Through his patronage, the Toledo Museum of Art became one of the most important museums for glassware.

While the collection of glassware was prominent during its early years, the museum also acquired many important pieces of Dutch art, such as works by Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt and Willem de Kooning. Delftware is another highlight of the collection, with both blue and white and polychrome wares from the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The majority comprises dishes and garnitures, however one series of plates stands out: a series of twelve plates with scenes of a whaling expedition. 

Whale “fishing” took place from April to August in the Greenland seas. During the seventeenth century, whaling progressed from bay and coastal waters to the open sea, and finally to the arctic waters where the whales would swim along the ice floes in search of plankton. The Greenland ice fishery required stronger-hulled ships, the so-called ‘Groendlandvaarders,’ whereas in the Davis Strait lighter ships could hunt. All of the whaling ships were characterized by a large horizontal beam across the width of the stern from which the harpoon boats were lowered for the harpooners to hunt and kill the whale.

While the catch from coastal or bay whaling could be processed promptly in cookeries on land in settlements such as Smeerenburg [‘Blubber Town’], near Spitsbergen, for whaling on the open seas, time, geography and distances were such that the whales had to be slaughtered alongside the ship. The meat and blubber were barreled aboard the ships, and after the return of the fleet to the Dutch harbor, they were reduced to oil.

The Groninger Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in Groningen, the Netherlands. Founded in 1847 by Hendrikus Octavius Feith, the museum was originally called Museum van Germaanse Oudheden (Museum of Germanic Antiquities). From the start, the museum was affiliated with the University of Groninger. In fact, several other museums were connected to the university, including The Museum van Natuurlijke Historie (Museum of Natural History) and the collection for Mineralogy, Geology, Zoology and Zootomy.

During the twentieth century the museum expanded its collection with porcelain exported by the Dutch East India Company. The porcelain collection totals around nine thousand objects, making it a significant area of focus for the museum. The museum also owns a wide variety of Delftware including plaques, plates, garnitures and much more.

One highlight of the collection is a coffeepot with cover in blue and white with chinoiserie figures and floral decorations. The coffeepot is marked LVE for Lambertus van Eenhoorn, the owner of de Metaale Pot (The Metal Pot) factory. De Metaale Pot factory continually innovated their eclectic production of earthenware to create complex shapes and decorations. At the time of Lambertus van Eenhoorn’s ownership, the craze for blue and white Wanli (1572-1620) and Kangxi (1662-1722) period porcelain was at its height. Numerous pieces designed by De Metaale Pot factory under Lambertus’ ownership drew inspiration directly from the blue and white Chinese porcelain. The decorations on these wares often consisted of varied floral and landscape motifs, and occasionally included figural subjects.

Princeton University is one of the oldest collecting institutions in the United States. The origins of the collection date nearly to the University’s foundation in the eighteenth century. The collection initially began with a painting gifted from University patron, New Jersey Colonial Governor Jonathan Belcher. Other paintings and works of art followed but were destroyed due to battles in 1777 and a fire in 1802. These initial efforts set the tone for the institution’s collecting over the next century and suggest an early commitment to teaching from original objects and using them as tools for accessing and understanding the wider world. Museum, teaching, and library operated as three interwoven strands. 

In addition to paintings, the museum also acquired objects such as a large selection of Cypriot pottery from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection in 1890; Etruscan, Roman, and South Italian pottery; and objects from later periods. Later in the twentieth century other major gifts came to the museum, such as a collection of more than forty Italian paintings, a collection of more than five hundred snuff bottles, and also sculpture and photography. 

Today the Princeton University Art Museum is one of the nation’s foremost art museums. The collections have greatly exceeded those of a study collection. Numbering more than 112,000 objects, the collections range chronologically from ancient to contemporary art and concentrate geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, Asia, the United States, Latin America, and Africa.

The museum also houses Delftware, especially dishes and chargers. An interesting dish is a crespina, probably made in Haarlem around 1650. This type of decoration has traditionally been called ‘Grotesques à la Patanazzi’, referring to similar maiolica dishes made in Urbino circa 1515 by the Patanazzi family of potters. Similar crespinas with the cherub or putto figure at various pursuits within the same or similar decoration on the molded rim have been attributed to the workshop of Willem Jansz. Verstraeten.