Delft, circa 1770

DIMENSIONS
Height: 40.5 cm. (16 in.); Width: 34.9 cm. (13.8 in.)

PROVENANCE
American Private Collection;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam 2005;
Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 12 October 2004, lot 157

LITERATURE
Aronson 2019, pp. 114-115, no. 58

NOTE
The mirrored source for this plaque is La Musique Philis, an engraving by Nicolas Chateau (1680–1750), Paris, 1708, accompanied by a poem praising the enchanting power of music and love:

La Musique, Philis, est une enchanteresse,

Mais qui doit à l’Amour ce qu’elle fait de mieux.

Je juge avoir ce Dieu qui brille dans tes yeux,

Ce qu’il peut à ta voix ajouter de tendresse.

 

M.R.

Philis (Phyllis) is a figure from Greek mythology whose name signifies “foliage” or “leaves.” According to the legend, she married Demophoön, King of Athens and son of Theseus, during his return from Troy. When he failed to keep his vow to return to her, Phyllis took her own life and was transformed by the gods into an almond tree. Only upon opening a casket she had entrusted to him did Demophoön understand his neglect; embracing the barren tree, he brought it miraculously into bloom.

Phyllis’s story was well known in the seventeenth century and was referenced by the Dutch composer Jacob van Eyck (1590–1657) in several works, including Phyllis schooner Herderin and Philis quam Philander tegen. Such compositions may have contributed to the reception of Chateau’s La Musique Philis, which in turn served as the model for the present plaque.

Delft, circa 1680
Attributed to Frederik van Frytom (circa 1632-1702)

DIMENSIONS
Width: 21.5 cm. (8.5 in.)

PROVENANCE
Dutch Private Collection;
Terra Verde Collection

NOTE
Holland’s most celebrated painter of seventeenth-century Delft faience, Frederik van Frytom, was born Frederik Barents(z). He is recorded as a faience painter as early as 1653, when he was about twenty years old. The origins of the surname Van Frytom remain unclear: it is unknown in Dutch and appears nowhere outside Delft at the time. Only Frederik and his sister Martha adopted it, sometime between 1657 and 1658, likely to distinguish the painter professionally from the more common patronymic Barents.

Although trained as an easel painter, Van Frytom devoted most of his career to decorating faience, translating his drawings of the Dutch countryside onto earthenware. He was one of the few independent Delftware painters in Delft, having received special guild permission to work outside the factories. Nonetheless, he appears in the inventories of De Metaale Pot, owned by Lambertus Cleffius, between 1679 and 1691, suggesting that he purchased production capacity there or collaborated with Cleffius. Several related plaques bearing the initials LC support this connection.

Van Frytom specialized in tile plaques, dishes, and plates, with only a few exceptions, such as a small signed jug and two unsigned pieces. Most of his work is unsigned, but occasional signatures and dates make it possible to identify his hand. His monochrome blue palette and reserved white areas give his pastoral scenes depth and luminosity. Unusually, he seems to have been responsible for both the painting and the clay models, which was an uncommon practice in Delft. His meticulous approach suggests that he allowed others to prepare materials only under close supervision.

His landscapes use multiple spatial planes, with pointillist touches in the foreground and distant ruins or hilltop buildings, while small, gracefully draped figures animate the scenery. Approximately fifty plaques are attributed to him today, a few signed but most unsigned.

Delft, circa 1770

DIMENSIONS
Heights: 38.6 cm. (15.2 in.); Widths: 28 cm. (11 in.)

PROVENANCE
Jacques Fijnaut, Amsterdam;
Sotheby’s Amsterdam, October 12, 2004,
no. 156;
The Collection of Archibald Stirling of Keir, Scotland

NOTE
The representations of the Four Seasons on this set of plaques are based on a series of engravings by the Parisian printmaker A. J. de Fehrt (1723–1774), who occasionally signed his works J. A. or Bernard de Fehrt. His designs, in turn, derive from the celebrated pastel series of the Four Seasons by the Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757), executed around 1731 and now preserved in the Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. In Carriera’s cycle, the allegory of Winter has traditionally been interpreted as a self-portrait of the artist, lending the series an additional autobiographical dimension.

The presence of the complete cycle on these Delft plaques underscores the remarkable continuity of the Four Seasons as a pictorial theme. Since antiquity, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter were conceived not merely as divisions of time, but as allegorical figures embodying nature’s rhythms, agricultural labor, and the human experience of cyclical change. Roman mosaics and Pompeian wall paintings already established an iconographic canon, presenting Spring with flowers, Summer with wheat or a sickle, Autumn with grapes or vine leaves, and Winter wrapped in heavy garments.

This tradition was revitalized during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, most notably in pictorial cycles by artists such as Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), whose Four Seasons (1660–1664) fuse classical mythology with Christian symbolism. In the eighteenth century, these established visual conventions continued to circulate widely through prints, which served as important models for artists and artisans alike.

Within Delftware production, the theme of the Four Seasons enjoyed considerable popularity. In addition to plaques such as the present set, Delft potters produced allegorical figures and other decorative objects reflecting the same subject matter. These plaques thus illustrate how international artistic models, transmitted through prints and painting, were adapted into Delftware, reaffirming the enduring appeal of the Four Seasons as an allegory of time, nature, and human life. 

Delft, circa 1660

DIMENSIONS
Length 24.2 cm. (9.5 in.);
Height 14.8 cm. (5.8. in.)

PROVENANCE

Dutch Private Collection, Maastricht;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam, 2002

NOTE
This Delftware marine plaque exemplifies the close relationship between seventeenth-century Dutch ceramics and contemporary marine painting. Decorated in cobalt blue on a white tin-glazed ground, it depicts a naval engagement with clustered warships, billowing sails, and an animated sea, reflecting the visual language of Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707), the foremost chronicler of Dutch naval power. The scene is likely inspired by the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665– 1667), a conflict that profoundly shaped Dutch visual culture. Marine battles were widely commemorated in paintings, drawings, and prints, serving both as historical records and expressions of national identity. The legible rendering of ships, rigging, and flags suggests familiarity with Van de Velde’s battle scenes, admired for their technical accuracy and documentary precision. While the rise of Delftware is closely associated with global trade and the import of Chinese porcelain, the broader cultural resonance of maritime life in the Dutch Republic is less often emphasized. Nautical themes permeated Dutch visual culture, extending beyond merchant and seafaring circles into aspects of everyday life and the decorative arts. Despite the Netherlands’ maritime identity, such imagery remains relatively rare on Delftware, with notable exceptions such as the present plaque. Maritime scenes occur more frequently on Delft tiles, albeit in simplified form, whereas paintings more commonly depicted ships and naval battles, often listed in period inventories as zeebatalje or stormpie. This disparity may be explained by the complexity of rendering ships, with their intricate rigging and precise proportions, features better suited to painting than to the stylized techniques of tin- glazed earthenware. Produced around 1660, this plaque belongs to an early and ambitious phase of Delftware production, demonstrating how ceramic painters translated elite pictorial traditions into another medium. It stands as a rare and compelling example of marine iconography in Delftware, reflecting both the cultural significance of naval warfare and the enduring influence of Willem van de Velde the Younger.

Delft, circa 1770

DIMENSIONS
Heights: 16.6 cm. (6.5 in.);
Lengths: 17.8 cm. (7 in.)

PROVENANCE
Dutch Private Collection, Maastricht;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam;
Dutch Private Collection

NOTE
Floral plaques of this type formed an important part of eighteenth-century interior decoration, where they were hung singly or in symmetrical pairs to complement painted walls, mirrors, or larger ceramic ensembles.

Delft floral plaques draw directly on the long-standing Dutch tradition of flower painting, which flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rather than depicting botanically exact specimens, Delft painters favored carefully balanced bouquets composed of different flowers shown simultaneously in bloom. This approach reflects an aesthetic ideal rooted in abundance, harmony, and visual richness, rather than strict naturalism. The present plaques feature centrally arranged floral compositions, painted in a lively polychrome palette, and framed by scalloped, lobed outlines that enhance their decorative presence.

Floral plaques of this scale are relatively uncommon and were likely intended for more intimate interior settings. Their paired format suggests they were conceived as pendants, reinforcing symmetry and balance within a room. Such plaques were appreciated for their painterly quality and their close relationship to contemporary flower still lifes on canvas and paper.

Delft, circa 1780

DIMENSIONS
Height: 32 cm. (12.6 in.);
Width: 26.5 cm. (10.4 in.)

PROVENANCE
Dutch Private Collection, Maastricht;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam;
Collection C.M. Orleans

NOTE
This rare pair of Delft plaques exemplifies the Rococo taste for ornate framing combined with the enduring popularity of pastoral subject matter. Scenes of country life were widely admired in the eighteenth century, not only in painting and print culture but also in the decorative arts. They presented an idealized vision of rustic simplicity, often populated with shepherds, livestock, and tranquil landscapes, a deliberate contrast to the sophistication and turbulence of urban life. Delft potters, aware of these aesthetic currents, adapted such themes to faience surfaces, offering their clientele an artful reflection of Arcadian ideals.

The composition on these plaques appears to draw inspiration from a 1769 print by Cornelis Ploos van Amstel, after a 1654 drawing by Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem (1622–1683), one of the seventeenth-century’s foremost painters of Italianate pastoral landscapes. Delft faience painters frequently borrowed from engravings and drawings, sometimes reworking earlier seventeenth-century models to better suit eighteenth-century Rococo tastes. This creative adaptation allowed potters to merge classical pastoral imagery with contemporary decorative fashion.

The present plaques belong to a rare group of Delft faience that combines richly polychrome molded frames with monochrome manganese painting. 

While the Rococo scrollwork frame form appears with some regularity, examples combining this bold polychrome border with manganese monochrome figural landscapes remain particularly uncommon. The pair demonstrates both the technical virtuosity of Delft painters and their ability to translate the wider visual culture of the Dutch Republic into richly decorative faience, bridging fine art and applied art in an enduringly charming form.

Delft, circa 1760

Each finely painted in yellow, iron-red, manganese, blue and green with a luxuriant arrangement of a variety of flowers and foliage in a wicker basket set on further blossoms and flanked by two small flitting insects, the convex self-frame with a border of blossoms and foliate scrolls and pierced at the top with two holes for suspension; the reverse glazed.

DIMENSIONS
Square: 27 cm. (10.6 in.)

NOTE
Flower baskets are frequently depicted on seventeenth-century Dutch floral still life paintings. Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573-1621) is considered the first Dutch artist to have made a flower basket oil painting in 1607. This work is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Bouquets from the Golden Age: the Mauritshuis in bloom, The Hague (Mauritshuis)/ Zwolle 1992, no. 7. Balthasar van Ast (1593/94-1657), who was Bosschaert’s brother in-law and pupil, is known to have made paintings of a flower basket with a fruit basket as its pendant (Ibid, no. 3). 1690), the French artist who arguably created the Louis XIV style. Monnoyer was commissioned as a decorative painter in the various palaces of Louis XIV, including Versailles. He also designed cartoons of floral borders for the tapestries of the Gobelins and Beauvais manufactories. Invited by the English ambassador to France, Lord Montagu, he departed for England around 1685 to decorate the Montagu House in London, where he lived and worked for the remainder of his life. The Delft plaque painters did not have access to Monnoyer’s paintings and would have used prints as their source of imagery. However, the print source for the design of the present plaques remains untraced. Nevertheless, the beautifully hand-colored engraving by Monnoyer, published by Nicolas de Poilly in Paris before 1696, shows how appealing and influential these colorful prints must have been to the imaginative artisans at that time. Peter Fuhring in his publication, Ornament prints in the Rijksmuseum II: the seventeenth century (Amsterdam [Rijksmuseum]/Rotterdam 2004), p. 293 (no. 12360), states that this print is part of the series,‘Liures de Plusieurs Paniers de Fleurs’ (‘Books of Multiple Flower Baskets’), which is known to have been copied in the Netherlands. On p.280 (no. 12215), the author illustrates a basket from a copy of the series edited by Gerard van Keulen, published in Amsterdam circa 1690-1700, and also mentions another series of five Dutch prints copied after Monnoyer from this period, engraved and published by Johannes Teyler (possibly Nijmegen), which contains two plates with flower baskets (p. 280, nos. 12216-17).

Delft, circa 1760

Marked D in blue, attributed to Jan Theunis Dextra, owner of De Grieksche A (The Greek A) factory from 1757 to 1765

Painted in iron-red, yellow, iron-red, manganese, blue and green with a lush bouquet of flowers, such as a lily-of-the-valley, lily, carnation, anemone and peony in a blue and white vase, the self-molded frame with a blue ground reserved with iron-red scrollwork and leaf patterns, the top pierced with two holes for suspension; the reverse glazed.

DIMENSIONS
Height: 36.5 cm. (14.4 in.);
Width: 32.5 cm. (12.8)

PROVENANCE
Collection Maurice de Ramaix (1850-1918), Château de Grune, Belgium, before 1913

NOTE
Maurice de Ramaix (1850–1918), a distinguished Belgian diplomat, developed a profound appreciation for Delftware during his tenure in The Hague in the late ninenteenth century. His marriage to Marie Suermondt, of the prominent Suermondt family, further immersed him in elite circles where such artistry was esteemed. De Ramaix’s diplomatic assignments across Europe, combined with his scholarly interest in Dutch industry—articularly his admiration for De Porceleyne Fles (now known as Royal Delft)—deepened his passion for Delftware. His collection, later expanded by his son Gaston (1878–1937), became renowned for its exquisite seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pieces, which reflected themes of nature, historical narratives, and aristocratic patronage. Notably, the collection featured polychrome plaques adorned with avian motifs, exemplifying the family’s discerning taste and commitment to preserving Dutch ceramic artistry.

Delft, circa 1750

Each painted in blue, green, manganese, iron-red, and yellow, with a flowering tree and two exotic birds perched on a branch, the self-molded frame decorated with alternating panels filled with floral elements, affixed at the top with a pair of leaf scrolls flanking the suspension hole.

DIMENSIONS
Height: 25 cm. (9.8 in.);
Width: 23 cm. (9 in.)

NOTE
The fascination with exotic, vividly colored birds captivated the European imagination for centuries. Among the most prized natural luxuries from Asia were the plumes of birds of paradise, which had been highly valued in regional trade networks for at least 5000 years before European contact in the late fifteenth century. These magnificent feathers were not only symbols of opulence but also played a role in early global trade, stimulating European demand for exotic avian imagery in decorative arts.

By the eighteenth century, Chinese porcelain adorned with depictions of exotic birds—often shown in lush landscapes teeming with vibrant floral plants—was immensely sought after in the Netherlands. These motifs, blending elements of realism and fantasy, reflected both an admiration for the natural world and a growing European appreciation for Asian artistic traditions. Dutch Delftware painters, influenced by these imported porcelains, reinterpreted the imagery through their own artistic lens, creating some of the most vividly painted plaques of the period. These Delftware plaques commonly depict birds perched on flowering branches, rendered in rich polychrome palettes, often incorporating elements of chinoiserie and Dutch stylistic conventions. The adaptation of these motifs in Delftware exemplifies the fluid exchange of artistic ideas between Asia and Europe in the early modern period, highlighting the role of global trade in shaping decorative traditions. The enduring appeal of these compositions speaks to a shared fascination with nature’s beauty, translated across cultures through the medium of ceramics.

Delft, dated 1744

Each marked on the reverse with unidentified initials IVRB 1744 in blue

Each painted in blue, green, iron-red and yellow, with a three-layered dashed fountain flanked by birds in a stylized garden filled with flowers, C-volutes and scrollwork, the self-molded bframe with a blue-ground border reserved with floral scrollwork within blue lines and a band above the outer edge affixed at the top with a pair of leaf scrolls flanking the suspension hole.

DIMENSIONS
Height: 24.5 cm. (9.7 in.);
Width: 22 cm. (8.7 in.)

NOTE
Referred to as “porcelain paintings” in period household inventories, Delftware plaques were designed to be admired much like traditional paintings on panel, canvas, or copper. However, due to their visual similarity to prints and paintings, it is exceptionally rare to find contemporary representations that depict how they were originally displayed in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century interiors. By the late seventeenth century, Delftware plaques were distinguished by their refined craftsmanship and creative designs. Their shapes became increasingly stylized, with cut-out and molded contours enhancing their decorative appeal. The imagery on Delftware plaques was highly diverse, often reflecting contemporary artistic trends, social concerns, and prevailing tastes. Many plaques took inspiration from canvas paintings or prints, the
latter often based on original paintings.

A widely used reproduction technique involved pouncing, a method by which designs were transferred from prints onto ceramics. This process entailed perforating the print to create a stencil and then dusting fine charcoal powder (known as ‘pounce’) through the perforations. The resulting dotted outline provided a guide for painting the motif, with the charcoal powder burning off during the glost firing process. This technique ensured precision in replicating artistic compositions while allowing Delftware painters to imbue their works with their own stylistic interpretations.

SIMILAR EXAMPLES
A pair of similarly molded plaques with chinoiserie decorations is illustrated in Aronson 2023, pp. 60-61, no. 33. Another pair of the same model is illustrated in Aronson 2003, p. 25, no. 23. Additionally, a plate with a related ornamental design in the same color scheme was sold at RM Auctions on January 31, 2016, lot 357.