Before electrification, candles were the main source of light after dark. However, they were considered a luxury, even in the well-to-do home. Thus, the expression ‘the game’s not worth the candle’ highlights the fact that lighting a candle was like burning money itself. Tallow candles, made of animal fat, were the most commonly used candles. They emitted a foul odor and a black vapor, and burned very quickly. An expensive alternative was the beeswax candle, which had a more pleasant perfume and burned for a longer period of time.

Like the candles, their holders were also very expensive objects. Candlesticks gave a particular splendor to the parties and ceremonies of wealthy households. For example, candlesticks were placed in front of mirrors in order to increase the intensity of the light in French King Louis XIV’s Hall of Mirrors. Candlesticks of various shapes have been produced in Dutch Delftware since the 1680s. Some of the earliest examples are documented in the inventories of De Metaale Pot (The Metal Pot) and De Grieksche A (The Greek A) factories. These early candlesticks were sometimes executed in white Delftware, and of square or octagonal shape, as with the present pair.

With their high intelligence and their humanlike behavior in which we can recognize our own, monkeys and apes were either loved or hated. In art, from the fourteenth throughout the seventeenth century, monkeys were not so much targets of ridicule themselves, but were used to point out the idiocies of human endeavor. Once established as the rage in France, where its satirical freedom, its insouciance and its playful exoticism were so akin to the court culture, singerie spread rapidly around Europe. However, with few exceptions, it did not have the same fashionable effect in ceramic representations. Even in Holland, where the more jocular population was willing to laugh at its own foibles, the most popular figures produced at the Delft factories were more representative of familiar daily life than of élitist pursuits, a theme underlying singerie. This is what makes the present figures so rare and unusual, establishing them as one of the very few examples of singerie in Delftware.

Condition

• One with a repair to base leg
• One with a repair to tip of foot, hand and pipe

Unlike his contemporaries, whose production is characterized by horror vacui, Lambertus Cleffius preferred spare decoration, as can be seen on this ewer. Although the shape was already known in the Netherlands in silver or pewter in the early seventeenth century, it is thought that the Delft potters adopted the shape from Nevers faience models, which in turn had borrowed their inspiration from Italy.

Italian faience examples of this shape, with additional grotesque masks on the body beneath the handle, have been excavated in Holland. The twisted handles and chinoiserie decoration, which can be seen also on Nevers, show a closer resemblance to the Delft versions. Trading between Delft and French ceramic centers did exist as early as 1665, when Willem Cleffius, the father of Lambertus, together with Wouter van Eenhoorn, tried to collect payments due from the brothers Révérand, French dealers who had bought Delftware.

The Nevers prototypes for these ewers, referred to as aiguières religieuses, are thought to have had a similar ecclesiastical use. The Delft ewers of this type, however, seem to have had a secular, decorative function, and some even have a royal connection. In the garden of Palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn, adjacent to the cellar dairy of Queen Mary II (1662-1694), fragments of a ewer with a similar handle and top of the neck have been excavated.
Provenance
Provate Dutch Collection, Eindhoven

Condition

• • Overall in good condition