A material record / Ceramic
Delftware
Dutch tin-glazed earthenware painted in cobalt blue, made to rival Chinese porcelain.
01 / Origin
Where it comes from.
From 1610 the Netherlands imported some 100,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain a year. The competition pushed Dutch potters to refine their own wares, and their earthenware became thinner, whiter and shinier.
Without the kaolin clay that porcelain needs, Delft potters covered ordinary earthenware in an opaque white glaze containing tin oxide, then painted it with cobalt oxide, which fires to blue. Forms and decoration were often taken directly from Chinese examples. By 1670 the pottery industry employed a quarter of Delft's male population.
In the Atlas: Netherlands, China
02 / Colour
The colours it gives.
Sampled from the material, at the numbered points.
The white is an opaque tin glaze over ordinary clay; the blue is cobalt, painted on and fired, pooling darker where the brush lingered.
- 01Tin Glaze
#D2CFCC - 02Cobalt Wash
#697FA1 - 03Cobalt Line
#2B4B78
03 / In the studies
Where it appears.
1 study uses it.