Delft, Pair of lamps with Chinese style vases , 17th/19th century

Delft, Manufacture « La Bouteille de Porcelaine »(* De porseleyne Flesch ), signed.

Pair of lamps made of Delft earthenware, ovoid form with a chiseled and gilt bronze mount.
Mount with circular base on four small little legs, openwork on each side, Chinese style decoration with stylized ruyi clouds and small swirls. The upper part of the mount, piedouche shaped, is topped by and laurel wreath torus and a molding adorned with a meander greek frieze.
The body of the lamp is a Delft earthenware vase, ovoid shaped with a blue chinoiserie decoration on a white background. The scene represented is a landscape, near to a river, with Chinese characters hunting and fishing, on earth or on the river. They’re surrounded by luxurious vegetation such as flowered prunus, supporting huge birds, probably phoenixes. A frieze of clouds alternating with triangles adorns the bottom of the vase.

Under each vase, a blue signature with a “J” and a “K”, joined, toped by a point and a small wave beneath. Signature matches with the mark of Johannes Knotter, owner of the Manufacture De porseleyne Flesch, « The Porcelain Bottle», between 1697 and 1701.

Mount and mounting in lamp from the late 19^th century. New and working electrical system.

The Porcelain Bottle manufacture was already registered in 1655 belonging to Quiryn Aldertsz  Kleynovzen et Wouter van Eenhoorn (owner of the famous manufacture of the Greek A). The Kleynovzen widow sold the manufacture to Johannes Knotter the 5 February 1697.

Delft earthenware refers to the Dutch production settled in number near to Delft, since the 17th century.  This earthenware became famous because it succeeds to imitate the Ming Chinese dynasty porcelain, blue and white.

Those porcelains were known trough all the Europe, thanks to the India Companies and more particularly the Dutch East India Company created in 1602. Delft potters, despite the lack of kaolin that prevent to get the same results as the porcelain, they managed the creation of earthenware items very close to porcelains thanks to a tin glazed background covered with another layer, the kwaart, a lead solution that became solid as glass after firing.

First, Delfts imitated Chinese motifs and then explored other solution, such as flowers and plants. Also, polychrome Delfts appeared progressively even if the white and blue production remains the most famous one.

Sources :
FOUREST H-P, La faïence de Delft, Office du Livre S.A., Fribourg (Suisse), 1980
JUSTICE J., Dictionnaire des marques et monogrammes de la faïence de Delft, F. de Nobele, Paris-Bruxelles, 1920, 3e édition, pp.22-24, 184-185.