D2541. Blue and White Armorial Plate

Delft, circa 1710

Marked PAK in blue for Pieter Kocx, the owner of De Grieksche A (The Greek A) factory from 1701 to 1703, or his widow Johanna van der Heul, the owner of the factory from 1703 to 1722

Painted in the center with the arms of the Wentworth family with a chevron between three leopard’s heads, encircled by a garter inscribed with the motto HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE beneath an earl’s coronet and between griffin and lion supporters standing on a bracket suspending a banderole with the further motto EN DIEU EST TOUT, the rim with a border of five floral lappets alternating with pendants of tulips, blossoms and scrolls, the underside encircled by three blue lines.

DIMENSIONS
Diameter: 22.4 cm. (8.9 in.)

PROVENANCE
The Peter Van Slyke Collection, U.S.A.;
Christie’s, London, 1-2 December 2015, lot 37;
Property of a Private Collector;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam

LITERATURE
Described and illustrated in Aronson 2009, pp. 64-65, no. 40.

NOTE
The inscription “honi soit mal qui y pense” (shame upon him who thinks evil of it) within a representation of a garter surrounding the shield, is the motto of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Membership in this English chivalric order is limited to the Sovereign and the Prince of Wales, twenty-four full members, or Companions, and certain Supernumerary Knights and Ladies, including members of the British Royal Family and foreign monarchs. In continuous existence from the 14th century up to the present, one of the current seven foreign monarchs includes Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

When in use with the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom, the motto of the Order of the Garter is accompanied by the royal motto, “Dieu et mon droit” (“God and my right”), which is illustrated on a polychrome and gilded PAK-marked Delft dish in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (Lahaussois 1994, p. 56, no. 48). In this case, the coat of arms with the motto “En Dieu est tout” (“In God is All”) on the scroll beneath the shield belongs to the Wentworth family of Woolley, in West Yorkshire, England.The commission of this Delft dish can be related to Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (2nd creation) (1672–1739), who was created a Knight of the Garter in 1712. He was the great-nephew of the statesman Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1st creation) (1593–1641). As the first cousin once removed of William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, Thomas inherited his title after William’s death in 1695, and thereby also became the 3rd Baron Raby. However, the family estate, Wentworth Woodhouse, was passed on to William’s
nephew Thomas Watson-Wentworth (1693–1750), 1st Marquess of Rockingham.
Thomas Wentworth was a diplomat and First Lord of the Admiralty (1712–1714). In 1711 he became Earl of Strafford, and in 1722 Duke of Strafford. He had been a soldier in the service of Willem III, rising to the rank of colonel of dragoons. Under Queen Anne, he was an envoy to Berlin from 1705 to 1711 and then transferred to The Hague, where he was the British Ambassador to the Dutch Republic from 1711 to 1714.
Together with John Robinson, the Bishop of Bristol, Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, was Queen Anne’s plenipotentiary at the Congress of Utrecht. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and the 1714 Treaty of Rastatt ended the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which was intended to prevent French hegemony in Europe. When in 1700 Philip, Duc d’Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV of France, inherited the Spanish throne from Charles II of Spain and became Philip V of Spain, the possible union of these two powerful monarchies disrupted the European balance of power. In the negotiations, Strafford and his policies, thought to have coerced and abandoned the United Provinces as an ally, apparently were not very popular among the Dutch, for as L. Fray and M. Fray in The Treaties of the War of the Spanish Succession: An Historical and Critical Dictionary (Westport, CT, 1995), indicate, “On occasion his windows were smashed and the Tories were denounced as disguised papists” (p. 490).

As a Tory, Wentworth became equally unpopular in England. Queen Anne, the last monarch of the House of Stuart, was succeeded in 1714 by King George I from the House of Hannover, who favored the Whigs. The Treaty of Utrecht was not popular with the Whigs, and after the Tories lost the 1715 election, the Whigs impeached Tory leaders for their part in the peace negotiations with France. Among them was Thomas Wentworth, and although he was never prosecuted, he subsequently joined the Jacobites.

In 1708, Thomas Wentworth purchased Stainborough Hall in South Yorkshire, which he renamed Wentworth Castle, and enhanced with an expansion designed by the architect Johannes Von Bodt and completed around 1730. The architectural rivalry with his cousin Thomas Watson-Wentworth, who simultaneously was expanding the nearby Wentworth Woodhouse, resulted in Thomas Wentworth building the longest room in Europe at the time, running along the full façade of Wentworth Castle, a challenge met by his cousin, who then built on Wentworth Woodhouse the longest exterior façade. Wentworth family, a distinguished English lineage with roots tracing back to pre-Norman Conquest England, has played a significant role in British history, particularly in Yorkshire. The surname “Wentworth” originates from the village of Wentworth in Yorkshire, where the family established itself as prominent landowners. Notably, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1593–1641), exemplified the family’s political prominence as a leading advisor to King Charles I.