Lid jars Porceleyne Fles

Inspiration from the Orient

These lid jars are a beautiful example of the fascination that arose in the early twentieth century for the art and culture of the Near and Middle East. At the De Porceleyne Fles earthenware factory in Delft, technical director Heinrich Mauser took the initiative to study the ceramics from these regions. Together with the painter and designer Leon Senf (1860 - 1940), he visited various museums and exhibitions on Islamic art at home and abroad. In particular, the large exhibition of ‘Mohammedan’ art that was held in Munich in 1910 provided a great deal of study material.

Mauser studied the technical processes, while Senf made dozens of sketches of the shapes and decorations. Senf made new designs based on these sketches. At the end of 1910, De Porceleyne Fles launched the new products on the market under the name ‘Nieuw-Delfts’. Some models are exact copies of historical pieces, often they are their own interpretations. The latter also applies to these lid jars.

We know exactly which object at the Munich exhibition inspired Leon Senf and even exactly when he saw this example and made a sketch of it. This sketch, dated 26 September 1910, has been preserved in the company archive of De Porceleyne Fles and is now at the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. In addition to the date, there is also a number on the drawing and this is how the exact details of the pot could be traced in the old Munich exhibition catalogue: a fifty-centimetre high water jar from Raqqa in Syria from the twelfth or thirteenth century. These water jars were lashed to camels, which carried them through the desert. This fact inspired Leon Senf to add a camel to the lid. He also incorporated the carrying ropes into his design. In addition to the sketch that Senf made of the original pot, his design drawing of the lid jar, coloured in with watercolours, has also been preserved.

Pair of lid jars with luster glaze, approx. 1915, De Porceleyne Fles, Delft design, Leon Senf, earthenware, h. 60,5 cm, on loan from Ottema-Kingma Stichting.

By far the most Nieuw-Delfts is painted with floral motifs in different colours, again based on the old oriental examples. These lid jars are an exception. They are covered with a striking sugary pink glaze. A lustre glaze is applied over this, which gives the objects a metallic sheen. The difficult and very expensive lustre technique also has its origins in Islamic culture. The quality of the glazes is perfect – a result of years of experimentation at De Porceleyne Fles. With these covered pots the earthenware factory not only proved its design qualities, but also the high standard of its craftsmanship.

De Porceleyne Fles

Of the more than thirty pottery factories that Delft once had, only one remained at the end of the nineteenth century: De Porceleyne Fles. In 1876, Joost Thooft (1844 - 1890) took over the factory. He breathed new life into the production of the famous Delftware. But that was not all. With the artistic input of designers from inside and outside the company, he also wanted to explore new paths. In addition to the traditional blue and white range, many other product lines were created. The oriental-inspired Nieuw-Delfts was perhaps the most successful of these: it was produced for no less than thirty years.

Karin Gaillard, curator European ceramics at Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics.