D2502. Pair of Blue and White Double-Gourd-Shaped Vases

Delft, circa 1670

Each marked with an indistinctive S in blue

Each painted on the bottle-shaped upper section with a stag approaching a Chinese man seated near a tree and holding a dish or large pear beneath a lappet border around the neck, the spherical body below painted on one side with a moon shining above man seated by a bird perched in a flowering tree, and on the reverse with a tree between a man standing and another seated on a rock beneath a foliate border around the shoulder.

DIMENSIONS
Heights: 32 and 31.8 cm. (12.6 in.)

PROVENANCE
The Kitty Valkier-Schreurs Collection, Belgium;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam

LITERATURE
Described and illustrated in Aronson 2006, p. 13, no. 6

NOTE
The gourd-shape was previously unknown to the West. This exotic model found itself very popular in the Dutch Republic and was reproduced in Delft faience. The decoration also finds its origin in Chinese transitional porcelain, which began to arrive in the Dutch Republic from 1635. This new type of high quality porcelain served as fresh inspiration for Delft potters. The term “transitional” refers to the political upheaval in China following the death of Emperor Wanli in 1619, which eventually led to the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing Dynasty in 1644. Unlike Kraak-wares, transitional wares were not divided into panels; instead, they featured continuous scenes, often depicting landscapes with animals or figures in conversation or dynamic action.

The Chinese symbolism of the decoration got lost when copied on Delftware. The deer on the neck of the vases for example is foremost a Daoist emblem of longevity in Chinese culture. The deer is known as the only animal that can find the holy linghzi funguses of immortality. Besides this a deer is a symbol of wealth since the Chinese word for deer, lu, is a homonym for the salary of an official. For the Delft potters, the deer was a familiar subject, known to have been used purely decoratively on majolica and tiles already. This pair of vases can be attributed to a group of faience that is decorated with scenes inspired on the Chinese transitional wares. These were decorated on the entire area with a continuous scene that often consisted of landscapes with animals or figures either conversing or in a moment of spirited action. During the period between about 1920 and 1990, objects of this type of decoration were attributed to the relatively small faience manufactory in Frankfurt-am-Main. However, this assumption has been convincingly refuted by Dr. Jan Daan van Dam and others, who have established that this type of faience originates from Delft. This conclusion is based on dated examples, including one in the collection of the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, which is dated 1661, predating the start of production in Frankfurt.