Exotic Imitation and Local Cultivation: A Study on the Art Form of Dutch Delftware Between 1640 and 1720

Abstract

This chapter focuses primarily on two issues: first, strategies for how Dutch potters imitated decorations and motifs on Chinese porcelain and second, how the potters assimilated these influences into Dutch native pictorial convention, creating a regionally specific style and art production. To address these issues, the author mainly discusses Delftware made between 1640 and 1720. The use of under glaze cobalt blue against the white ground is a remarkable feature of Chinese porcelain exported to European market. The specific border decorations and exotic motifs in the center were copied in majolica first, then more frequently in Delftware for a relatively long period from the mid-seventeenth century on. The style reflecting Chinese and other Asian countries' artistic influence became known in Europe as Chinoiserie in the mid-seventeenth century and reached its peak when it was assimilated into European Rococo ornamentation in the mid-eighteenth century. Keywords:chinese porcelain; Chinoiserie style; Dutch Delftware; majolica