JVV 0555
Delft, 1640-1660
A blue and white plate without a foot rim with a straight, slightly raised flange is painted in the centre with the Biblical setting of the sacrifice of Isaac. The depiction is framed within a double circle. The flange is decorated with a continuous band of floral and leafy scrolls. The well and part of the flange are unpainted.
Dimensions: diameter 22,1 cm / 8.70 in.
Explanatory note
Plates without a foot rim with a diameter of around 22 cm were mass-produced in the seventeenth century from around 1630 by potteries in Delft and other places. The plates are painted mainly with Dutch decors such as landscapes, biblical scenes, still lives, fruits, floral decors, animals, heraldic arms, cartouches, figures, texts, etc. It is a particularly attractive group due to its smooth and sketchy style of painting. Due to frequent and daily use, many have also been lost and discarded. Consequently, they turn up with great regularity in archaeological excavations. Examples that have survived time above ground are rarer.
In this plate, the delftware painter has departed from the most common depictions of the sacrifice of Isaac. Normally Isaac is kneeling on the ground with Abraham behind him, or he is lying on the altar as originally mentioned in the Bible story. When Abraham wants to strike, the angel appears and stops Abraham. This moment is the one most often depicted. With this plate, it is different. Abraham is about to stab his son Isaac with a knife. Isaac lies half on the ground with his face turned towards Abraham and raises his left arm to ward off the stab: the most dramatic part of the story, just before the angel appears. The painter has heightened the drama by depicting Isaac in a more active, resisting pose, so that it looks like a vulgar brawl in which one threatens to lose out. It is not known whether the painter came up with this himself or whether he based it on a graphic example.
