JVV 0601
Delft, circa 1670
The blue and white dish has a wide, spreading flange and is painted in the centre with a horseman blowing a trumpet in a (water) landscape. In the foreground, a resting man converses with a passing traveller. A village with a church tower, houses and barns lies at the waterfront. A tall tree and a castle ruin stand at the edge of the village. The scene is framed in a double circle. The border is divided into five segments, separated by an S-shaped bracket with a face and a grove of bushes. The segments are filled with sea creatures. A standing Chinese figure is painted on the back of the flange.
Dimensions: diameter 38,4 cm / 15.11 in.
Provenance: Christie's London, auction 1-2 December 2015, lot 22, acquired from European Ceramics Consultancy, The Netherlands in May 2009.
Similar examples
Three similar specimens are known. In the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, there is a dish with a hunter and a seated man at the waterfront and a sailboat in the water (inv.no. WA1978.244-L). Another dish with a hunter shooting two ducks and a sailboat in the water was auctioned at Rob Michiels Auctions in Bruges, Belgium in 2016. A third, damaged dish showing two fishermen at the waterfront and a sailing boat on the water was auctioned in Rotterdam, The Netherlands (Venduhuis) in December 2024.
Explanatory note
The design of this dish and the three similar ones is the same: in the foreground are figures along the waterfront with a village with a ruin, a tree and buildings on the right. The design of the village is slightly different each time. All dishes have a segmented border decor. Apart from these four dishes, eight more are known with the same segmented border decor, seven with an image of Fortuna and one with two sea creatures. The white of the tin glaze, the colour blue used and the style of painting point to one pottery and most probably also to one painter.
Fragments of four plates were excavated in Rotterdam, three with a (water) landscape and one with a sea creature, with a segmented rim with the S-shaped brackets and groves of shrubbery (face is missing). The segments are filled with ships, landscapes, and a single sea monster. The plates appear to have been made slightly earlier. All four are in the collection of Museum Rotterdam (inv.nos. 14171-5, 14171-6, 14171-61, 14171-98.B).
