Pair of tulip vases as triumphal arches
At the end of the seventeenth century, Dutch potters perfected a glossy white tin glaze which, when painted with underglaze blue decoration, rivaled the brilliance of true Chinese porcelain, a material that Europeans were unable to replicate until the early eighteenth century. Following the establishment of the Dutch East India Company in 1602, Chinese porcelain reached the Netherlands in ever greater quantities. Delft potters were soon producing faithful imitations in less expensive earthenware to meet the demand for fashionable blue-and-white. Vases with spouts for cut flowers were a specialty of the Netherlands, where tulip mania reached a fever pitch about 1630, when tulips were among the most valuable commodities before the sudden collapse of their inflated prices, an early instance of a speculative bubble.
It was Queen Mary II, ruler of England alongside her Dutch husband, William III of Orange, who ensured the popularity of tulip vases with spouts by ordering monumental tiered examples for both interior and exterior use at royal palaces in Holland and England. Several Delft potteries produced tulip vases in a wide variety of shapes and sizes—from low circular bowls to tall, slender obelisks. This pair, created around the same time as Queen Mary’s, takes the form of triumphal arches like those erected by cities to commemorate the arrival of important guests. Each side is decorated differently, with one side in good repair and the other showing signs of decay. The Greek A factory in Delft was known for introducing novel shapes and for supplying more than half of all the Delft tulip vases known today.
