Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, and The Hague, to the northwest. Together with them, it is part of both the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area and the Randstad.
Delftware or Delft pottery, also known as Delft Blue or as delf, is a general term now used for Dutch tin-glazed earthenware, a form of faience. Most of it is blue and white pottery, and the city of Delft in the Netherlands was the major centre of production, but the term covers wares with other colours, and made elsewhere. It is also used for similar pottery, English delftware.
Faience or faïence is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result, the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions of porcelain styles.
Spode is an English brand of pottery and homewares produced by the company of the same name, which is based in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Spode was founded by Josiah Spode (1733–1797) in 1770, and was responsible for perfecting two extremely important techniques that were crucial to the worldwide success of the English pottery industry in the century to follow.
"Blue and white pottery" covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by stencilling or by transfer-printing, though other methods of application have also been used. The cobalt pigment is one of the very few that can withstand the highest firing temperatures that are required, in particular for porcelain, which partly accounts for its long-lasting popularity. Historically, many other colours required overglaze decoration and then a second firing at a lower temperature to fix that.
Tin-glazed pottery is earthenware covered in lead glaze with added tin oxide which is white, shiny and opaque ; usually this provides a background for brightly painted decoration. It has been important in Islamic and European pottery, but very little used in East Asia. The pottery body is usually made of red or buff-colored earthenware and the white glaze imitated Chinese porcelain. The decoration on tin-glazed pottery is usually applied to the unfired glaze surface by brush with metallic oxides, commonly cobalt oxide, copper oxide, iron oxide, manganese dioxide and antimony oxide. The makers of Italian tin-glazed pottery from the late Renaissance blended oxides to produce detailed and realistic polychrome paintings.
Royal Leerdam Crystal was a Dutch producer of glassware products based in Leerdam, the Netherlands. It was established in 1878 as a department within a glassware producing factory, Glasfabriek Leerdam, itself founded in 1765. From 1938 until 2002 it was part of the Schiedam-based Vereenigde Glasfabrieken. In 2002, the factory became part of the American glass and tableware company Libbey Inc. In 2008, Royal Leerdam was purchased by De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles, becoming part of the Royal Delt Group. In September 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the glass-making facilities were shut.
Art pottery is a term for pottery with artistic aspirations, made in relatively small quantities, mostly between about 1870 and 1930. Typically, sets of the usual tableware items are excluded from the term; instead the objects produced are mostly decorative vessels such as vases, jugs, bowls and the like which are sold singly. The term originated in the later 19th century, and is usually used only for pottery produced from that period onwards. It tends to be used for ceramics produced in factory conditions, but in relatively small quantities, using skilled workers, with at the least close supervision by a designer or some sort of artistic director. Studio pottery is a step up, supposed to be produced in even smaller quantities, with the hands-on participation of an artist-potter, who often performs all or most of the production stages. But the use of both terms can be elastic. Ceramic art is often a much wider term, covering all pottery that comes within the scope of art history, but "ceramic artist" is often used for hands-on artist potters in studio pottery.
A tulip vase, or pyramid vase, is a vase designed to put cut flowers and especially tulips in, but it primarily serves as a decorative showpiece. They were first made in the Netherlands in the 17th century and were decorated with Delfts blauw or Chinese decoration. Replicas of the original tulip vases were made in China and were imported by the Dutch East India Company.
China painting, or porcelain painting, is the decoration of glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases or statues. The body of the object may be hard-paste porcelain, developed in China in the 7th or 8th century, or soft-paste porcelain, developed in 18th-century Europe. The broader term ceramic painting includes painted decoration on lead-glazed earthenware such as creamware or tin-glazed pottery such as maiolica or faience.
Johannes Jacobus (Jan) van der Vaart was an influential Dutch ceramist from the 20th century, known as founder of the abstract-geometric ceramics in the Netherlands.
Jan de Rooden was a Dutch ceramist and sculptor, who worked in Nijmegen, Paris, and Amsterdam.
Theodorus Antonius Hubertus Maria (Theo) Dobbelman was a Dutch sculptor, ceramist and painter.
Johanna Jacoba (Johnny) Rolf is a Dutch ceramist, drawing artist and sculptor.
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. While some ceramics are considered fine art, such as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramics may also be considered artefacts in archaeology. Ceramic art can be made by one person or by a group of people. In a pottery or ceramic factory, a group of people design, manufacture and decorate the art ware. Products from a pottery are sometimes referred to as "art pottery". In a one-person pottery studio, ceramists or potters produce studio pottery.
Delft Jewelry is the generic name for jewelry featuring Dutch (Netherlands) miniature Delftware medallions or brooch panels in a silver setting. Delft jewelry includes necklaces, pendants, earrings, brooches, bracelets, rings, and cufflinks. The Delft panels are usually made of pottery and decorated with a blue and white windmill landscape. The silver setting often has the form of silver filigree. Delft jewelry has been made in the Netherlands since c.1879. It flourished especially in the decades after WW2 as a result of demand from the Dutch tourist industry. That era saw the emergence of three specialist producers of Delft medallions. For most other Delftware factories however, brooch panels have been a relatively small side product.
Euphemia Hendrika Maria (Phemia) Molkenboer was a Dutch ceramist, furniture designer, draughtswoman and art teacher.
Japanese export porcelain includes a wide range of porcelain that was made and decorated in Japan primarily for export to Europe and later to North America, with significant quantities going to south and southeastern Asian markets. Production for export to the West falls almost entirely into two periods, firstly between the 1650s and 1740s, and then the period from the 1850s onwards.
Willem Jansz Verstraeten was a Dutch Golden Age tin-glazed maiolica maker in Haarlem.
Simone Haak is a Dutch visual artist, who has worked as monumental artist. sculptor and ceramicist, She is art dealer at Gallery Terra Delft, which she co-founded with Joke Doedens (1962).
