Delft – ‘Petit Feu’ Cow Figurine, 18th century

Delft ‘petit feu’ polychrome recumbent cow. The cow is painted with a powdered pale iron-red hide, a black forelock, eyes, eyebrows, tail and hooves, an iron-red mouth. It is wearing garlands of iron-red, blue and yellow flowers on its back and a wreath of red flowers and green leaves around its neck. Laying on a marbleized plinth in iron-red, manganese and yellow.

The petit feu firing allowed Delft potters to expand their color palette, first used in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The technique allowed the potter to use colors that could not stand high temperatures in the kiln. After the first firing (biscuit) and second firing (grand feu colors and glaze), petit feu colors were applied on top of the glaze. Then the objects were fired again at a lower temperature (about 600 degrees Celsius) in a smaller kiln known as the muffle oven (muffle kiln).

Adoring cows or bulls with floral wreaths harks back to a seventeenth century custom. Every year the butchers guild held a parade with the prize-winning cows and bulls, which were lavishly adorned with flowers and floral wreaths, and their horns and hoofs painted.

Condition: Wear consistent with age. Losses to the glaze. Horns and earns lacking.

• Width: 9 centimeters
• Height: 8 centimeters
• Depth: 5 centimeters