Delftware

Delftware, also called Delft pottery or Delft Blue, is Dutch tin glazed earthenware, a form of faience, most often decorated in blue and white though other colors and other production centers, including English ones, also fall under the name; the Netherlands city of Delft was its main manufacturing center. Potters applied a white tin glaze and painted designs in cobalt oxide, which withstands the heat of firing under that glaze, using a clay blend of local material mixed with clay from Tournai and the Rhineland; around 1700 some workshops added enamel colors and gilding, requiring an extra lower temperature firing. The style emerged around 1600 and reached its most highly regarded period between 1640 and 1740, developed by Dutch potters as an affordable substitute after Chinese porcelain imports stopped following the death of the Wanli Emperor in 1620, and it grew into a major Dutch Golden Age industry exported across Europe and eventually copied by Asian potters making their own versions.