Mirabella Majolica klaar

My second Delftware plate "Mirabella Majolica" is ready ("klaar" in Dutch),
see my previous post "Made in Delft", July 6th 2011.

More information on Delftware you can find here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delftware

And more information on Majolica (or Maiolica) you can find here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiolica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majolica

Cucumber time in the city

A rainy summer here in the Netherlands. Not much interesting going on, almost the whole country is in France or Greece. This is what the Dutch call "Komkommertijd", in English "Cucumber time".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
And in Dutch overhere:
http://www.geencommentaar.nl/2010/08/22/big-goosberry-season/
Copy text + paste in translate.google.com

But the van den Nieuwendijk family is not afraid of a bit of rain so me and my two boys (Milo and Elias) are playing soccer! The picture was taken on a slightly better day...
And I cleaned up my new studio, and I must say that I am quite content with the result.

Sultan Mahmud Babar II

Work in progress on my new painting 'Sultan Mahmud Babar II'.
Showing left the preliminary sketch.

Perpetua's vase

I am happy to announce that my large vase 'Perpetua Porseline', I made in Jingdezhen, China in 2010, will permanently be on display in museum Prinsenhof from August 2011!

More information will follow.
http://www.prinsenhof-delft.nl/

Made in Delft

I've worked on two special ceramic plates. The plates are made at the 'De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles / Royal Delft', museum factory in Delft, wwwwww.royaldelft.com
I painted them in the Cobalt Blue that made "Delftware" famous!
The first plate has just come out of the kiln.
The figure on the plate is Perpetua Porseline (eternal porcelain), my own goddess of Porcelain. She is carrying a Ming vase, and she is surrounded by Chinese symbols of good fortune and luck.

The second plate is showing the character 'Mirabella Majolica'. She is representing the ancient ceramic 'Majolica' technique. She is an Italianesk Renaissance 'beauty', because the most important samples of the technique originate from 16th century Italy.
Note that both the Majolica technique and the Chinese (blue and white) porselain where a great influence in the development of Delftware.
Below picture's of the work in progress (the plate has not come out the kiln yet).