Petit Feu and Gilded Inkstand and Cover

Delft, circa 1755-65

The serpentine rectangular body affixed at the back of the top with a rococo-molded taperstick between a pair of vigilant birds with colorful plumage, and molded on the edges with scrolls and rocaillerie forming handles at the ends and cartouches on all sides painted on the ends and back with floral sprigs or sprays, and on the front with a river landscape depicting a fenced cottage in the foreground and a church, a windmill and smaller buildings on the distant bank, the flat cover painted with a similar scene of a fenced cottage before distant sailboats interrupted by the molded figure of a Chinese man wearing a blue robe patterned with gilt blossoms and reclining with his right elbow propped on a large book, and the interior fitted with a pair of rose-edged rectangular inkwells and at the right end with a pounce pot.

Height: 16.1 cm. (6 5/16 in.); length: 18.8 cm. (7 7/16 in.)

Provenance: Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam (2001);

The collection of Benjamin F. Edwards III, St. Louis, Missouri (until 2010)

Literature: Aronson 2000-2001, ill. 47 & Aronson 2010, ill. 74

This inkstand with its molded scrolls, gilt-heightened bright petit feu colors, rural scenes and exotic Chinaman are at the peak of rococo design in Dutch Delftware. With the arrival of the cheaper and more durable English creamware, the Delft faience industry struggled in the second half of the eighteenth century, and the number of factories declined. To cut costs, pieces remained undecorated or patterns were simplified, but this inkstand and the previous watch stand are fine examples of what the Delft potters could accomplish in this era, producing fashionable items of high quality, almost closer in style and sensibility to porcelain than to faience.

Proper inkstands generally comprised several removable elements, including an inkwell and a pounce pot, which would have contained a fine sand or powder (“pounce”) that would be sprinkled on the paper to dry the wet ink. The taperstick, a slightly less standard component, allowed the inkstand to serve a dual function as a source of light on the desk.

Similar examples: An inkstand of similar form and decoration, with the same reclining figure on the cover, but the birds replaced by a pair of tapersticks flanking a central watch stand, in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is illustrated in Van Dam 2004, p. 179, ill. 124, where, on p. 178, the author also makes reference to a similar model marked AP for Anthonij Pennis of De Twee Scheepjes (The Two Ships) Factory (1750-1782), which was on the art market in 1959 (Rococo in Nederland, exh.cat., Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 253). Another example with a central watch stand flanked by tapersticks, but with an integral top into which two separate wells and a pounce pot fit, the whole decorated in blue and green, is illustrated in Lavino, p. 192 (top). A blue and white example including the same birds as the present inkstand, but the taperstick replaced by a scroll ornament, and the cover missing, was sold at Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 25 March 1997, lot 193.

In contrast to the rococo examples of the mid eighteenth century, which exploit the full plasticity of ceramics in their exuberant models, inkstands of the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century are most often of restrained rectangular shapes, generally based on metal forms, with a central candle nozzle flanked by an inkwell and pounce pot, and with a pen compartment or trough at the front, as exemplified by two blue and white examples in the Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam, illustrated in Van Dam 2004, p. 46, ill. 19; and in Lunsingh Scheurleer 1984, p. 234, ill. 143, respectively.