True blue Delft pottery

I was new to auctions when I saw my first piece of Delft pottery. It was in a glass cabinet with other “medium-high-end” items at what would become one of my favorite auction houses.

It was a large white round bowl on a stand with lovely blue decorations along the sides – either a punch bowl or fruit bowl. It stood out like a gem among the other items in the cabinet.

I wasn’t into pottery much then – I especially wasn’t into manufacturers – and so I bought the bowl for its beauty, and then researched it. A couple years later, I found a little tea strainer that was as cute and delicate as it could be.

Delft pottery was first produced by 32 factories in Delft, Holland, back in the 17^th century, according to an article on the homestyletoday.com website. Also called “Delftware,” the pottery was hand-painted earthenware designed by craftsmen. By the mid-19^th century, Delftware faced competition from European porcelain makers and its popularity declined. Today, only a few factories still produce the pottery.

I sometimes find souvenir and real pieces of the trademark blue Delft at auctions or antique stores. I’ve even come across lookalikes at flea markets and on roadside tables, especially the Dutch clogs. The true collector knows to bypass these and look for the correct manufacturer’s mark on the bottom: apothecary jar, initials JT and the word Delft. Or if you’re like me, you just buy what you like.

Besides the pottery, the town of Delft is also known for one of its most famous artists, Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), who captured his birthplace in a painting called “View of Delft” around 1660. Vermeer is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age primarily for his masterpiece “Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665).”

At auctions, I still check out any blue-and-white pottery I see with intricate designs, along with the obligatory Dutch windmills, shoes, ships and lighthouse scenes.

Once, I found a piece with an unusual mark on the bottom and discovered during research that it had been made by the Oud Delft factory in Holland. What was unusual was the Colonial Williamsburg connection: The Virginia history site – a reconstruction itself – had sanctioned two Holland companies to make reproductions of its own antique pottery, including original jars, vases, flower frogs, wall pockets, lamps and other pottery. Here are some examples.

Another time at an outdoor flea market, I came across a pair of Delft-like earrings, a dangly pair in a silver-plated casing with blue windmills on a white background. Were they real Delft? Probably not, but they were nice.

My other Delft finds were a flower-frog reproduction made by Sleepy Hollow Restorations in Hudson, Valley, NY, a strawberry planter/candle-holder and tiles. Most of the pieces did not have the authentic Delft trademark – they had the inscription “Delft Holland” – but they were neat repros, including that sweet little tea strainer.