Large Three-Piece Blue and White Dutch Delftware Chinoiserie Garniture, late 17th century

Large Three-Piece Blue and White Dutch Delftware Garniture

A large three-piece Dutch Delftware garniture, comprising a baluster-shaped vase with a domed cover and a pair of bottle vases with globular bodies and tall cylindrical necks. All three pieces stand on circular spreading feet. The cover of the central vase is surmounted by a spherical finial.

The garniture is painted in cobalt blue on an opaque white tin glaze. Each vase is decorated with a continuous chinoiserie scene depicting groups of figures and attendants in an extensive landscape with trees, rocks and stylised vegetation. The narrative decoration is inspired by Chinese Transitional porcelain of the mid-seventeenth century, which provided an important source for Delft potters during the second half of the seventeenth century.

Garnitures of this scale were intended for prominent display on top of cabinets or chimney pieces. The combination of a central covered vase and two flanking bottle vases creates the symmetrical arrangement characteristic of the Dutch kaststel.

Delft, late 17th century.
Height: 51 cm each.
Circumference of the covered vase: 91 cm.
Circumference of the bottle vases: 78.5 cm each.