Delftware

Delft pottery is typically the blue and white pottery generally made in the Netherlands around the town of Delft. After the Dutch East India Company began bringing Chinese porcelain in the early 1600s, a market for locally produced imitation pottery began. For unknown reasons this industry was concentrated in the Delft and Rotterdam area. Delftware includes pottery objects of all descriptions such as plates, ornaments, banks, but especially tiles.

Deftware is part of the tin glaze style of pottery, which also includes maiolica, faience and majolica where tin-based white glazes were applied first, then metal oxide decoration and finally a lead-based clear glaze overcoat to make them glossy. Delftware was originally produced with local colored clay and first painted white then blue decoration added. In 1884 a white clay was introduced and today all clay for Dutch delftware is imported.

Usually produced in blue and white but also in polychrome, Delftware often has native Dutch scenes suchs as windmills and fishing boats.

English Delftware was originally called "galleyware" but after the popularity of Dutch products was renamed in the 1700s.

The only remaining original producer of Dutch delftware is "De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles" founded in 1653. The name translates as "the royal porcelain pot" and their symbol is a stylized pot.\n