Main image: Polychrome plaque, Delft, circa 1740-1760, Aronson Collection (inv. no. D0731)

Since Chinese porcelain entered the Dutch market around 1600, it captured people’s imagination and laid the foundation for Delft faience. One of the most fascinating aspects of this cultural exchange is the transformation of Chinese motifs, often associated with deep symbolic meanings, into new forms that appealed to Western tastes. In this month’s article, we explore the original cultural value of two popular figures who are often copied on Delft faience: Lange Lijs (Long Eliza) and Zotje (the Dancing Boy or Fool).

For centuries, the decorations on Chinese art have been far more than mere ornamentation; they have consistently conveyed symbolic meaning and reflected the core values of Confucianism and Daoism, two fundamental pillars of Chinese culture.¹ From a traditional Chinese perspective, the appreciation of porcelain arises not only from its aesthetic beauty but also from the interpretation of its symbolism.² In this sense, decorations are “read” rather than simply viewed, a duality encapsulated in the Chinese character kan, which signifies both “to look at” and “to read.”³

In contrast, Western collectors initially valued Chinese porcelain primarily for its aesthetic and exotic appeal. Delft potters, eager to capture this allure, reproduced Chinese imagery in their faience imitations, often unaware of the original symbolic resonance of the figures.⁴ Narrative scenes were seen as isolated images, detached from their original context and rearranged into decorative patterns suitable for the European market. Chinese female figures, emblematic of exotic refinement, became especially popular during the mid-seventeenth century, stimulated by publications such as Athanasius Kircher’s China Illustrata (1667). This work, drawing on Jesuit reports and travelers’ accounts, offered idealized depictions of Chinese life, emphasizing elegant women, elaborate hairstyles, and scenes of leisure.⁵ Within this context, the figures now known as Lange Lijs and Zotje gained popularity.

In Dutch, Lijs is a diminutive form of Elizabeth and has been associated since the sixteenth century with both a “tall woman” and a “slow person.” Because Chinese female figures on porcelain were typically depicted as tall and slender, the term came to refer especially to the “tall woman,” giving rise to the familiar nickname Lange Lijs (Long Eliza) (Fig. 1). The dancing boys who often accompany her, are known as Zotjes, likely so called because of their playful or comical poses as perceived from a Dutch perspective.

Lange Lijs and Zotje appeared on porcelain depicting garden terraces and pavilions and are recognized as part of a key transitional style in Kangxi porcelain decoration within European collections.⁶ Besides commissioned porcelain, Chinese designers themselves anticipated this demand by emphasizing female figures to satisfy European interest in feminized Chinese motifs.⁷ On Chinese porcelain, elongated female figures were originally part of narrative scenes that would have been immediately recognizable to Chinese audiences. These women often represent specific characters, identifiable by the attributes they hold or by objects placed around them.⁸

When Delft potters copied these figures, they adopted not only their elegant silhouettes but in many cases also their accompanying attributes. However, in Delftware these details lost their original symbolic meaning. Even so, such attributes still provide valuable clues that help us reconstruct the identities of the figures now known as Lange Lijzen.

Chinese historical and mythological figures

One important female figure in Chinese culture is He Xiangu, traditionally regarded as the only woman among the Eight Immortals. She is believed to have been a historical person from the Tang dynasty (618–907), named He Qiong. According to later Daoist hagiographies, He Xiangu received a revelatory dream in her youth instructing her to ingest a mineral, often described as powdered mica, to render her body subtle and impervious to decay. She followed this guidance, took a vow of celibacy, and devoted herself to Daoist cultivation until ultimately attaining immortality.

He Xiangu is most commonly depicted holding a lotus flower, and sometimes a sheng (mouth organ), a bamboo ladle, or a fly-whisk. The lotus is one of the most important and beloved motifs in Chinese art, symbolizing harmony, love, modesty, continuity, and the uniting of different elements. He Xiangu is identified as a healer and an exemplar of moral and spiritual purity within the Eight Immortals.

A Chinese porcelain plate illustrated in Fig. 2 depicts the Eight Immortals, among whom He Xiangu is shown in the upper right, holding a lotus over her shoulder. This image shows similarities with the Delft Lange Lijs figure shown in Fig. 3. These visual parallels, seen in numerous Delft faience examples, many made at De Grieksche A (The Greek A) factory, suggest that the motif may ultimately be traced back to representations of He Xiangu.⁹

On this Delft plate, the Lange Lijs figure is holding both a lotus and an osmanthus spray, while a child beside her carries osmanthus sprays in both hands. This composition may reflect a fusion with Xia Ying, another celebrated female figure in Chinese culture. This elegant woman appears in the narrative Zhe gui ying xi (“Plucking Osmanthus, Children at Play”). The story tells of the scholar Zhang Hua, who met a fairy named Xia Ying, disguised as a woman with a child and holding an osmanthus spray. She promised to marry Zhang Hua if he passed the imperial exams. Motivated by her words, he succeeded, and she stayed true to them.¹⁰ The scene therefore expresses the wish that a child will grow up to succeed in the civil-service examinations and attain official rank.

Another female figure frequently depicted on Chinese porcelain and subsequently copied in Delft faience as Lange Lijs, is the Moon Goddess Chang’e. According to an ancient legend, told in many variants across Asia, the moon is not regarded as a lifeless or empty place.¹¹ In one popular version of the myth, the moon is eclipsed and people, unaware of the astronomical cause, believe the end of the world is at hand. The legendary Emperor Yao therefore commands his most skilled archer, Hou Yi, to restore the moon. Hou Yi shoots his arrows into the heavens; when the moon reappears it is thought he has succeeded.

As a reward, the goddess Xi Wang-mu (the Queen Mother of the West) bestows upon Hou Yi the elixir of immortality. Before Hou Yi can consume it, his wife Chang’e drinks the elixir and flees to the moon, where she remains. In many versions Chang’e is accompanied by a rabbit or hare, the “moon hare”, who prepares the elixir of life from the osmanthus tree on the lunar surface. Chang’e seams to appear on a polychrome Delft dish holding a hare or rabbit (Fig. 5) This depiction was probably unintentional, but it nonetheless illustrates how Chinese cultural and symbolic motifs were adopted and integrated into Dutch Delftware.¹²

Zotje, the lively dancing boy who often accompanies Lange Lijs on both porcelain and Delftware, also occurs as an individual figure on certain Delft objects. In Fig. 4, he is depicted in the left and right medallions, where his posture, attire, and hairstyle, the beginning of a Manchu queue, are clearly visible. Beyond attempts to reproduce Chinese porcelain models faithfully, these features likely appealed to Dutch audiences as striking emblems of the exotic.

On Delftware, Zotje’s image might seem to represent merely an exotic jester, yet his origins trace back to complex Daoist and Confucian symbolism. In Confucian thought, sons represented the highest aspiration of parenthood: male heirs ensured the continuation of the family line and were uniquely qualified to perform ancestral rites. Images of boys therefore often conveyed wishes for many sons. In Daoist philosophy, the child symbolized the ideal state of natural simplicity, purity, and effortless harmony with the Tao, embodying unspoiled vitality and innocence, qualities valued above strength and ambition.

The stories of Lange Lijs and Zotje reveal how Chinese symbolic imagery was not merely copied but transformed as it entered the Dutch artistic imagination. What once conveyed Daoist ideals, Confucian virtues, and narratives of immortality or scholarly success became, in Delft, emblems of elegance, exoticism, and decorative beauty. Yet, when we reintroduce an understanding of the original Chinese symbolism, Delftware offers a far more nuanced insight into this early intercultural exchange. Even though this dialogue between East and West was largely unconscious and unintended, the surviving objects testify to a subtle meeting of worldviews, where Chinese narratives were reshaped through Dutch eyes, and new meanings emerged from misinterpretation. In this light, Lange Lijs and Zotje are not just decorative motifs, but enduring witnesses to a moment in history when global curiosity, commerce, and imagination intertwined, leaving behind a shared visual language that continues to captivate today.

 

Notes

1. Eva Ströber, Symbols on Chinese porcelain, 10.000 times happiness, 2011, p. 7
2. Ibidem
3. Ibidem
4. Christine Lahaussois, Delfts aardewerk, 2008, p. 106
5. Sarah E. Fraser, Yue Sun, and Hua Wang, Women on Display: Narration and Cross Media Spaces in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Chinese Porcelain, 2022, p. 50
6. Sarah E. Fraser, Yue Sun, and Hua Wang,  2022, p. 51
7. Sarah E. Fraser, Yue Sun, and Hua Wang, 2022, p. 84
8. Jan-Erik Nilsson, Long Eliza or Lange Lijzen on: https://gotheborg.com/glossary/longeliza.shtml
9. Ströber, 2011, p. 116
10. The osmanthus is a fragrant flowering plant native to China. Also known as the Tea Olive, Fragrant Olive, or Sweet Olive, it symbolizes love and is regarded as one of the ten most important flowers in Chinese culture.
11. Jan-Erik Nilsson, Long Eliza or Lange Lijzen on: https://gotheborg.com/glossary/longeliza.shtml
12. Menno Fitski, De Haas en de Maan. Arita-porselein in Japan 1620-1820, Amsterdam/Zwolle, 2003, p. 6
13. Ströber, 2011, p. 186
14. Ibidem
15. Jan Erik Nilsson, https://gotheborg.com/glossary/boy.shtml#S

 

Bibliography

• Fitski, Menno. De Haas en de Maan: Arita-porselein in Japan 1620–1820. Amsterdam/Zwolle, 2003.

• Fraser, Sarah E., Yue Sun, and Hua Wang. Women on Display: Narration and Cross-Media

Spaces in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Chinese Porcelain. 2022.

• Kircher, Athanasius. China Illustrata. Amsterdam, 1667.

• Lahaussois, Christine. Delfts aardewerk, 2008.

• Nilsson, Jan-Erik. “Long Eliza or Lange Lijzen.” Gotheborg.com. https://gotheborg.com/ glossary/longeliza.shtml

• Nilsson, Jan-Erik. “Boy.” Gotheborg.com. https://gotheborg.com/glossary/boy.shtml

• Ströber, Eva. Symbols on Chinese Porcelain: 10,000 Times Happiness. Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2011.