Dia.: 40 cm - H.: 10 cm

Provenance:
- An important Belgian private collection. 
- Acquired from Aronson Antiquairs, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2007 and with their label to the back. Scans of the catalogue where the basket is featured are included. ('Dutch Delftware' by Dave and Robert Aronson, 2007)

Blue and White Large Reticulated Octagonal Basket, Delft, circa 1670-90, marked with a numeral 10 in blue
The centre finely painted with a classical ruin in a wooded hilly landscape with a river and low trees in the foreground, and the canted sides formed by four panels molded and painted with floral swags, alternating with four panels pierced with scrolls, the panels edged with a scrolling vine border beneath applied loops alternating with S-scrolls centering bosses painted with blossoms around the upper edge of the rim, and the underside of the base raised on eight low circular feet.
Width: 40 cm. (153/4 in.)
Similar examples:
Given the technical challenges of forming and firing open work baskets, they must have been very expensive objects for the Delft factories to produce successfully. The rare surviving seventeenth century examples are often remarkably ambitious, suggesting that they probably were made special orders for display rather than use, and the present basket with its meticulously painted central scene and well conceived pierced and unusually molded sides would seem to confirm the more artistic than utilitarian nature of this especially large example.
A considerably smaller octagonal basket painted with two figures in a landscape, possibly by the same hand as the present example, and also marked with a numeral, is illustrated by Bovazoglu, p. 26, no. 40. Another smaller example dated 1680 is illustrated by Van Dam, Dated Dutch Delftware, p. 37, no. 16, who in Vormen uit vuur, no. 163, pp. 16, 18, 19, 21 and 22, ills. 1-6, illustrates five smaller baskets made by 't Jonge Moriaenshoofd (The Young Moor's Head) Factory, circa 1680-90. One of those is in the Evenepoel Collection at the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels, and is further illustrated by Helbig, Vol. 1. p. 92, fig. 61, who also illustrates on p. 36, tig. 12, an example dated 1692 above the mark of Lambertus Cleffius of De Metale Pot (The Metal Pot) Factory. Helbig, Vol. II, p. 24. fig. 12. also illustrates a 37 cm (14 1/2-inch) basket unusually decorated with a chinoiserie interior scene. A 36 cm. (141/8-inch) basket dated 1725 beneath the mark of Cornelis Brouwer of De Witte Starre (The White Star) Factory, is illustrated by Van Aken-Fehmers in Vol. I, pp. 229 and 251, no. 93, and in Vol. II, p. 255, no. 73, the date and scenic decoration suggesting that other than the development of more intricate piercing of the sides, this form changed little over a half century.
(Source: 'Dutch Delftware' by Dave and Robert Aronson, 2007, p. 6 & 7, ill. 1)

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