D2668. Pair of Plaques

Delft, circa 1780

DIMENSIONS
Height: 32 cm. (12.6 in.);
Width: 26.5 cm. (10.4 in.)

PROVENANCE
Dutch Private Collection, Maastricht;
Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam;
Collection C.M. Orleans

NOTE
This rare pair of Delft plaques exemplifies the Rococo taste for ornate framing combined with the enduring popularity of pastoral subject matter. Scenes of country life were widely admired in the eighteenth century, not only in painting and print culture but also in the decorative arts. They presented an idealized vision of rustic simplicity, often populated with shepherds, livestock, and tranquil landscapes, a deliberate contrast to the sophistication and turbulence of urban life. Delft potters, aware of these aesthetic currents, adapted such themes to faience surfaces, offering their clientele an artful reflection of Arcadian ideals.

The composition on these plaques appears to draw inspiration from a 1769 print by Cornelis Ploos van Amstel, after a 1654 drawing by Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem (1622–1683), one of the seventeenth-century’s foremost painters of Italianate pastoral landscapes. Delft faience painters frequently borrowed from engravings and drawings, sometimes reworking earlier seventeenth-century models to better suit eighteenth-century Rococo tastes. This creative adaptation allowed potters to merge classical pastoral imagery with contemporary decorative fashion.

The present plaques belong to a rare group of Delft faience that combines richly polychrome molded frames with monochrome manganese painting. 

While the Rococo scrollwork frame form appears with some regularity, examples combining this bold polychrome border with manganese monochrome figural landscapes remain particularly uncommon. The pair demonstrates both the technical virtuosity of Delft painters and their ability to translate the wider visual culture of the Dutch Republic into richly decorative faience, bridging fine art and applied art in an enduringly charming form.