D2454. Polychrome Birdcage Plaque

The recessed center painted with a brown canary in a brown cage within a rocaillerie cartouche beneath a fringed blue drapery suspended from blossoms with pendent tassels at the sides and an arched baldachin at the top painted with a figure looking over its shoulder, below the central cartouche a man and a woman dressed up standing between a blossoming tree in a pot and a flower on a pedestal with two small blossoms in each corner; the reverse glazed.

DIMENSIONS
Height: 33.7 cm. (13.3 in.)

PROVENANCE
French Private Collection, Paris, 2023 (Provenance+)

NOTE
The prevalence of bird motifs in Delftware craftsmanship has been associated with the renowned aviaries housed in Queen Mary II’s palace. Among these, a notable piece stands out: a cage adorned with fabric, showcasing exceptional sophistication. Such depictions serve as a reminder of the Dutch painters’ mastery of illusion, honed since the late fifteenth century through meticulous attention to detail and advancements in perspective. As societal dynamics shifted, catering to the emerging bourgeoisie, paintings adapted, scaling down to accommodate domestic themes. Genre painting, reflecting everyday life, supplanted historical narratives. Furthermore, the Reformation’s disdain for religious imagery ushered in an era dominated by still life and landscapes. Within this artistic milieu, trompe l’oeil representations of birds in cages emerged, varying in degrees of refinement.

SIMILAR EXAMPLES
Two similar plaques, but different in decoration are illustrated in Aronson 2015, pp. 108-109. Another comparable plaque is in the Museum Arnhem, inv. no. GM 02351, and in the Rijksmuseum, inv. no. BK-NM-12400-149. A birdcage plaque very similar in model and decoration, is part of the collection of Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and illustrated in Boyazoglu, 1980, p. 229, ill. 40. Another resembling model is depicted in Fourest, 1980.