JVV 0595
Makkum, dated 1785
Tichelaar pottery
painter: Douwe Klases Hofstra
The blue and white dishes are painted with two different biblical theme’s. One plate depicts the evangelist John with his symbol, the eagle. The text bar in the foreground reads “IOHANNES : W.P : 1785”. The image is painted after print no. 4 in Toneel ofte Vertooch by Pieter Schut, which is based on a print by Mattheüs Merian. The other plate depicts the beheading of John the Baptist. King Herod stands on the right in the doorway. The text bar in the foreground reads ‘IOANNES ONTHOOET’. The image is painted after print no. 30/34 in Toneel ofte Vertooch by Pieter Schut, which is based on a print by J. Sadeler after a design by Maarten de Vos. The well of both plates is unpainted. On the flange of the plates, four cartouches with floral motifs are reserved on a ground of trellis work.
Dimensions: diameter 26,2 cm / 10.31 in.
Explanatory note
Douwe Klases Hofstra (1767-1815) painted these two plates at the age of eighteen. In 1796, he became the company's first painter following the death of his predecessor, Gatse Sytses. The plate was fired on pins in a saggar as commonly used in Delft. So technically this plate deviates from production methods used in the Frisian potteries, where plates and dishes were stacked on top of each other divided by three-cornered stilts, as was customary in the production of majolica chargers. After firing, the stilts left three scars on the surface of the chargers. Instead of a layer of transparent lead glaze as commonly used in the Frisian potteries, the back of the plate is covered with a white layer of tin glaze.
Literature
Jan Pluis, Bijbeltegels. Bijbelse voorstellingen op Nederlandse wandtegels van de 17e tot de 20e eeuw / Bibelfliesen. Biblische Darstellungen auf niederländischen Wandfliesen vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Münster 1994.
Pieter Jan Tichelaar, Fries aardewerk III. Tichelaar Makkum 1700-1786, Leiden 2004
