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A Pair of Polychrome and Gilded Chinoiserie Vases

Dutch Delftware, circa 1680-85

Marked IW and numeral 12 in blue for Jacob Wemmersz. Hoppesteyn, the owner of Het Moriaenshooft (The Moor’s Head) Factory from 1664 until 1671, succeeded by his widow Jannetge Claesdr. van Straten through 1686

Each painted in iron-red, blue, green and manganese and heightened in gilding on one side of the baluster-form body with a boy hopping toward a kneeling figure picking flowers beside another clasping a bouquet, on the other with a boy jumping before a figure seated beside a pot of flowers while another holding a flowering branch observes from the distance, each separated by flowering shrubbery growing around rocks beneath the gilt-heightened blue lion-and-ring handles terminating in green acanthus leaves and affixed at the top to the rounded rim of the flower-and-scroll-decorated flaring cylindrical neck, the lower body with a blue-ground border of leaves and scrolls interrupted by four floral panels, and the ogee-domed foot with a band of blue trefoils and gilt dots above a border of demi-chrysanthum blossoms, stiff leaves and foliate scrolls.

Height: 26 cm. (10 ¼ in.)

Provenance:

Private collection, Braunschweig, Germany

Het Moriaenshooft (The Moor’s Head) Factory and Early Polychrome Chinoiserie Decoration

The Delft factory of Het Moriaenshooft (The Moor's Head) is renowned for the high quality of the faience produced during its ownership by the Hoppesteyn family from 1659 until 1692 (for a comprehensive history of Het Moriaenshooft and the Hoppesteyn family, see Van Aken-Fehmers 1999, pp. 199-202).  It was one of the first Delft factories in the late seventeenth century to experiment with polychrome decoration.  After applying the underglaze-blue pigment and additional colors, such as yellow, green and manganese (a deep brownish-purple), at 950º C, the iron-red and gilding were fired at successively lower temperatures.  This so-called 'mixed technique' is thought to have been developed around 1680, when Jacob Hoppesteyn's widow Jannetge managed the business.  Hoppesteyn pieces marked IW for Jacob Wemmersz. Hoppesteyn and his widow, or marked RIHS for their son Rochus (1661-92), are considered a technical tour de force for their time.

The objects that Het Moriaenshooft produced were intended mostly for Europe's royalty or noble elite.  The factory developed a reputation for products of great refinement, with a particularly milky white glaze and soft blue painting.  The distinct decorating style can be recognized also by scrollwork borders. Hoppesteyn pieces can be found decorated with either European subjects, such as Greek mythology or Dutch interior scenes, or chinoiserie patterns with or without Oriental figures.  Interestingly, a characteristic of the chinoiseries of Jacob Hoppesteyn seems to be the use of manganese, which is not found on pieces marked for his son Rochus. 

Although most of the objects marked for Rochus Hoppesteyn are decorated in colors with Oriental figures, it would appear that of the pieces marked IW, only four other pieces: another pair of vases, a large charger and a jar can be related to the polychrome chinoiserie decoration on the present pair of vases.  The first two of these four pieces: the pair of monumental baluster vases (figs. 1-3) in the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai (inv. no. A1143), are among the most illustrious pieces of Dutch Delftware known.  Their decoration, including a large flower vase and a seated Chinese dignitary, is closely linked to the third piece: the large ‘Spielberg’ Hoppesteyn charger in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, recently acquired from Aronson Antiquairs (see Aronson 2008, p. 27, no. 13).  The grotesque mask design in the border of the charger also is incorporated in the lambrequins on the shoulder of the Douai vases, and is a frequent border design element for Hoppesteyn pieces. The fourth IW-marked piece related to the present pair of vases is a large polychrome chinoiserie jar (fig. 4) in the collection of the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels (inv. no. Ev. 39), illustrated by Helbig, Vol. I, p. 96, fig. 65. 

The Brussels museum is particularly rich in Hoppesteyn pieces, among which is an unmarked polychrome pierced basket (inv. no. Ev. 80) decorated with a chinoiserie pattern, which can be attributed to Jacob Wemmersz. Hoppesteyn.  The collection also contains an IW-marked blue and white large chinoiserie bowl (inv. no. 6207) decorated with a scrollwork border similar to the scrollwork on the ‘Spielberg’ charger.  This same motif is repeated on the shoulder of an IW-marked polychrome jar with scrollwork cartouches in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, illustrated in Van Aken-Fehmers, 1999, cat. no. 75, p. 208.  

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has an interesting pair of polychrome bottle vases with a fan-bearing warrior and dignitary in a shield-shaped cartouche, illustrated by E. Neurdenburg, Oude Nederlandsche Majolica en Tegels, Delftsch Aardewerk, Amsterdam 1944, ill. 81. The bottle vases are attributed to Hoppesteyn, but unfortunately the bases, possibly IW-marked, are missing.  A polychrome IW-marked dish with a mythological scene of Diana and Actaeon in the center and a paneled ‘Kraak’-border is illustrated in Aronson, 1993, ill. 2.  A dish painted in blue with branches, stylized flowers and peaches after Chinese examples and marked RIHS for Rochus Hoppesteyn, in the collection of the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm, Sweden, is illustrated by H.H. Ressing,”Delfts aardewerk in Zweden, Een ceramiekreis in de zomer van 1990”, in: Mededelingenblad Nederlandse Vereniging van Vrienden van Ceramiek, 1991, 143, pp. 22-23, ills. 10 and 11. 

The Hoppesteyn ‘Zotjes’ Vases

The shape of these so-called ‘altar vases’ was derived from French faience examples.  In Nevers, vases of similar shape with a sparse decoration in the compendiario style and palette (blue, yellow and orange) were produced in the first half of the seventeenth century.

  These French designs, in turn, were inspired by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian prototypes.

  Archeologist Nina Jaspers has discovered that similarly shaped vases applied with colored garlands and putti, produced by Les Trois Mores Factory in Nevers, circa 1620-40, were extant in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century.

  The present pair of IW-marked vases is of great significance, not only because of its exceptional polychrome decoration,

 but also because in conjunction with a related blue and white pair with beast-and-ring handles, marked SVE for Samuel van Eenhoorn, the owner of De Grieksche A (The Greek A) Factory from 1678 until 1687, it provides the first incontrovertible proof that by the early 1680s this model was produced in Delft as well as in Italy and France.

This shape is known also in French silver.  From the middle and third quarter of the seventeenth century, silver vases with animal handles were made after prints by artists such as Jacques Stella (1596-1657) and Jean Marot (c. 1619-79), also after Italian metal examples.

  A pair of Dutch silver vases of this type, with the arms of Hans Willem Bentinck, was made in The Hague by Adam Loofs, the court silversmith of William III (1650-1702), probably in 1693.

  But given that the Delft vases do not have covers, nor do they have the garlands and gadrooning often found on the silver examples, it is more likely that they emulated the faience, rather than the  silver models.

With respect to their function, Christine Lahaussois has suggested that the prototypical Nevers ‘vases à chimères’ had an ecclesiastical purpose as flower vases on an altar.

  This is supported by the existence of faience vases of this shape, with either grotesque or scroll handles, which are sparsely decorated in blue and white or colors with the IHS Christogram or a portrait of Saint Peter.

  Jet Pijzel-Dommisse adds to this that Italian bronze candelabra from churches also exist with a middle section of similar shape.

Similar examples:

Unmarked blue and white chinoiserie vases of this type, circa 1675-1700, provide an element of uncertainty as to the place of manufacture.  Unmarked examples of similar shape, ascribed to Delft,  include a pair 26 cm. (10 ¼ in.) high, illustrated in Aronson 2004, p. 28, no. 26; and a single vase 23 cm. (9 1/16 in.) high sold at Christie’s Amsterdam, 30 May 2001, lot 438.  Attributed at that time to Jacob Wemmersz. Hoppesteyn, the model and size relate so closely to the pair marked SVE for Samuel van Eenhoorn, illustrated in Aronson 2010, pp. 56-58, no. 27, that their reattribution to De Grieksche A Factory is almost certain. 

Other attributions exist, however.  A similar unmarked pair, around 27 cm. (10 5/8 in.) high, in the Musée de l’Hôtel Sandelin, Saint-Omer (inv. no. 986.138.1/2) is attributed to Nevers.  A small chinoiserie vase with scroll handles, attributed to the Northern Netherlands, in the collection of Dingeman Korf, 14.7 cm. (5 13/16 in.) high, is illustrated in D. Korf, Nederlandse Majolica, Bussum [1962], p. 55, ill. 52.  And a pair of white vases, attributed to Rotterdam, with beast handles almost identical to the aforementioned SVE-marked pair, but sparsely decorated in colors with a (French) triple-tulip motif, on a stepped pedestal base, 26 cm. (10 ¼ in.) high, was sold at Christie’s Amsterdam on 12 December 1995, lot 290. 

A similar but much larger blue and white vase with lion-and-ring handles, marked for Jacob Wemmersz. Hoppesteyn, and decorated within large oval cartouches with mythological scenes of ‘Europa and the Bull’ and ‘Apollo and Daphne’ after Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 49.5 cm. (19 ½ in.) high, is illustrated in Aronson 2004, p. 29, no. 27.  A similarly shaped blue and white pair of larger size, 46 cm. (18 1/8 in.) high, unmarked but attributed to Hoppesteyn and decorated on the front with two European ladies seated in a garden setting and on the reverse with ‘Flora’ holding a cornucopia, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. BK-1955-64), is illustrated in Van Dam 2004, pp. 90-91, ill. 47. Another single large vase marked IW for Jacob Wemmersz. Hoppesteyn, decorated with peacocks in a landscape after Chinese examples, also in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is illustrated in De Jonge 1965, p. 123, ill. 60.  It is now evident that this shape was sufficiently important and popular to have migrated from Southern to Northern Europe and produced, if in very limited quantities, by a number of the more accomplished factories in Delft and elsewhere in the Netherlands.