NETHERLANDS GUIDE

The revival of Dutch Delftware artworks
TEXT: LAUREN WALKER | PHOTOS: PALEIS HET LOO/BART BRUSSEE
In the heart of the Netherlands stands a
palace constructed in the 17th century
by the House of Orange, called Paleis
Het Loo. It was later transformed into
a museum in 1984, and since 2016, it
has become home to one of the country’s
national treasures: a collection of
Delftware garden vases. Now, in a
unique collaboration with Amsterdam
Airport Schiphol, some of these stunning
garden vases are surprising travellers
at the country’s largest airport,
bringing Dutch Delftware vases to the
foreground and back in the public eye
once again.
During the restoration of the gardens
which came to an end three years ago,
Paleis Het Loo decided to bring the
grounds back to how they looked during
the Baroque period, when the palace was
home to the Orange family. Because they
found remains of Delftware vases in the
gardens, Paleis Het Loo decided these artefacts
should once again adorn the gardens
and be the cornerstone of the renovation
project. Three original royal vases
were found at various places in Europe –
at Erddig Hall in Wales, at Schloss Favorite
in Baden-Württemberg in Germany and in
France. The French vase was bought by
Paleis Het Loo in 2010. All three vases
served as examples for the manufacturing
of the new vases in the palace gardens.
Tradition and innovation
For the regeneration project, traditional
craft was combined with innovation.
Collaborating with the Industrial Design
faculty of the Technical University Delft,
experts used the latest technologies to
scan the extant garden vases for the
moulds. Production and hand-painting
of the vases has been undertaken by
Royal Tichelaar Makkum, using highquality
17th-century tin-glazing techniques.
In this way, innovation and craftsmanship
was combined. The production
was very labour-intensive: it takes
five days to paint just one vase! All 45
extraordinary replicate Delftware vases
produced for this project were moulded.
However, the surfaces were handpainted
and the 17th-century artisan
tin glaze applied by Royal Tichelaar
Makkum. The first inhabitants of the palace,
King William III and Queen Mary,
52 | Issue 71 | November 2019