D2671. Plate

Delft, circa 1780

DIMENSIONS
Diameter: 22.5 cm. (8.9 in.)

PROVENANCE
Sold in a set of three at Mak van Waay Auctions on June 11, 1974, lot no. 1985

NOTE
This blue and white commemorative plate, dated 1791, is painted in the center with an artist at his easel, holding a brush and palette and standing beside a table set with brushes and vessels. A draped curtain and window form the backdrop. The scene is inscribed Gozewijnus Dilbeek 1791.

Gosewijnus Johannes Dilbeek was born in Rotterdam on June 17, 1770, to Johannes Pieter Dilbeek and Maria van ’t Zijn. He married Maria M(e)ijnsbergen in Oude-Tonge on June 16, 1824; of their three children, only the eldest, Johanna Margareta, survived to adulthood. Archival sources list his occupation as verwer, a historical Dutch term denoting a decorator, typically a painter of architectural elements, furnishings, or other objects requiring finished surface ornament.

No specific event linking Dilbeek to the year 1791 has been documented, though the date may simply mark his attainment of the age of majority at twenty-one. Dilbeek died in 1840 at the age of sixty-nine.