Dutch Delftware – The Van der Vorm Collection

Description

Collecting art is an art in itself. Though the Latin ‘ars’ from which the word art derives also can be translated as “skill,” it seems impossible that the true art of collecting could be an ability that can be learned and trained. Of course one can build knowledge and train the eye to distinguish levels of quality, even to an elevated stage of connoisseurship. But it takes much more to assemble over many years, even over a lifetime, an art collection that imparts the certain feeling of completeness in its inherent selectivity and exemplariness.

The objects in the Van der Vorm collection are representative of the finest production of trompe l’œil tureens in Delft in the eighteenth century. The more common models, such as ducks, swans, and plovers, sit neatly beside the rarer shapes of stags or hares, and the exceptional examples as two coiled pikes and a reclining dromedary. The aesthetic appeal of these naturalistically molded and finely painted objects, and the amusing effect they have on their beholders, has never diminished since the moment of their creation. This collection of animals is a rare and beautiful zoo of Dutch Delftware.

Of course the collection comprises many more Delft treasures: fine and early pieces in blue and white, objects and plaques, a group of rare ‘Black Delft’ and ‘Brown Delft’ – pieces that stand as monuments to the extraordinary capabilities of the best potters in Delft.