Bowl
Artist
Christian Wilhelm
(English, active 1604 - 1630)
Manufacturer
Pickleherring Pottery
(English, ca. 1612 - 1684)
Date1632
MediumEarthenware with tin glaze (delftware)
DimensionsOverall: 5 1/4 inches (13.34 cm)
Credit LineGift of Frank P. Burnap
Object number57-11
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 112
Collections
DescriptionGlobular footed form with wide mouth and slightly everted lip; ring-grooved handle on opposite two sides of shoulder; inscribed"1632" beneath one. Blue floral meander on shoulder. Body has blue and white chinoiserie scene of birds perched on rocks and in flight.Exhibition History
The World of
Shakespeare, Virginia Museum of Fine
Arts, Richmond, January 10-February 16, 1964; Detroit Institute of Arts, March
10-April 6, 1964, no. 120.
From the pottery founded by Christian Wilhelm, this bowl was originally intended for cold soup and is the only known English tin-glazed earthenware example of this form. Other models are either German or Dutch.
What could have been a professional setback for Christian Wilhelm became a fortuitous opportunity. He arrived in London in 1604 from Holland intending to manufacture smalt, a blue cobalt dye, but an existing monopoly on its production foiled his plans. The first European arrivals of Chinese blue and white porcelain in Amsterdam, however, provided Wilhelm's next venture. As the demand for porcelain quickly surpassed the supply, Wilhelm swiftly began producing white, tin-glazed earthenware decorated with his cobalt blue. In 1628 he was granted the first patents in England to produce tin-glazed earthenware, often called delftware for its associations with the Dutch town Delft. The Chinese porcelains also provided inspiration for the birds, insects and floral motifs of Wilhelm's designs.
What could have been a professional setback for Christian Wilhelm became a fortuitous opportunity. He arrived in London in 1604 from Holland intending to manufacture smalt, a blue cobalt dye, but an existing monopoly on its production foiled his plans. The first European arrivals of Chinese blue and white porcelain in Amsterdam, however, provided Wilhelm's next venture. As the demand for porcelain quickly surpassed the supply, Wilhelm swiftly began producing white, tin-glazed earthenware decorated with his cobalt blue. In 1628 he was granted the first patents in England to produce tin-glazed earthenware, often called delftware for its associations with the Dutch town Delft. The Chinese porcelains also provided inspiration for the birds, insects and floral motifs of Wilhelm's designs.
Mr. Frank P. Burnap (1861-1957), Kansas City, MO by 1957;
His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1957.
Geoffrey Eliot Howard, Early English Drug Jars: With Some Notes on Jacobean Wine Pots, Cups, Etc. (London: Medici Society, 1931), unpaginated (repro.).
The World of Shakespeare, 1564-1616: An Exhibition Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Detroit Institute of Arts to Commemorate the Fourth Centenary of the Birth of William Shakespeare exh. cat. (Richmond, Va.: Detroit: Museum; The Institute, 1964), unpaginated.
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