J

‘Calendar’ Plate

2
Voorwerp
Merk
Decoratie

Blue and White ‘Calendar’ Plate from series of the Months, depicting a pastoral " Janúwarij " scene with ice skaters on a frozen canal (lake or river) and two gentleman in a tent having a animated conversation with a glass of wine, 'WVDB' Monogram Mark in blue for Widow van den Briel-Elling, owner of the factory 't Fortuyn, Delft, The Netherlands 1759-1771, plate made in the factory 't Fortuyn ca. 1765, diam. 25,5cm – h. 3,0cm.
Restored: Old Restorations removed but leaving some of the rim flaking with respect of its historical age.
Note:
- At Delft in 1764, Elisabeth Elling-van den Briel, widow of Pieter van den Briel († 1759) registered a mark, composed of the letters WVDB (Ref. 1, Ref. 2).
- A similar “October” ‘Calendar’ Plate with WVDB mark is in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum under Accession number 3852-1901 (Ref. 3) and on display at V&A South Kensington.
Ref. 1:: https://www.aronson.com/object/d2455-blue-and-white-oval-shaped-plaque/
Ref. 2: https://www.alaintruong.com/2025/12/blue-and-white-oval-shaped-plaque-d…
Ref. 3: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O160397/october-plate-van-den-briel/

Vraag

- For “all” the Delft January plates: Is the pictured ‘Janúwarij scene’ possibly after-, or an interpretation of, Cornelis Pronk’s (Amsterdam, 1691 - Amsterdam, 1759), pen, pencil and watercolor painting from 1748, “Ice fun on an frozen canal” (Ref. 4), bearing in mind that winterscenes on ice, whitch some include the famous “koek-en-zopietent”, were very popular amongst Dutch painters in the 17th and 18th century, see for example Philips Wouwerman (Haarlem 1619 – Haarlem 1668) (Ref. 5) and Jan van Goyen (Leiden 1596 – The Hague1656) (Ref. 6)?
- If the assumption above proves to be correct then other Caledar plates might represent other paintings and/or engravings from artists from the Low Countries?
- With the assumptions above, is the Copper engraving depicting people gathering firewood in winter by Jean Moyreau (Orleans 1690-1762 Paris) after a (lost?) painting by Philips Wouwerman (Haarlem 1619 – Haarlem 1668), Paris 1739, titled "L'Hyver", (Ref. 7) a possible candidate for the “Dezember plate”?
- Do 18th century Delft Polychrome calendar plates exist? If so, source please?

Ref. 4: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/IJsvermaak-op-een-bevro…
Ref. 5: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Philips_Wouwerman_-_Winterlands…
Ref. 6: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jan_van_Goyen_-_Winter_-_WGA102…
Ref. 7: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:L_Hyver.jpg

Afmetingen
diam. 25,5cm – h. 3,0cm
Collectie
publiekscollectie

Reacties 2

Those montplates were made bij several factorys and it's quite rare to find a complet set from the same factory. Here is an example of a complete set by factory The porceleyne Byl.  

https://www.carlobonte.be/auction-lot/an-exceptional-series-of-delft-bl…

There are no 18th-century polychrome versions of this specific series of narrative calendar boards. The famous twelve-part series with detailed seasonal and ice scenes (made by factories such as De Porceleyne Byl and De Lampetkan) were produced exclusively in blue and white.

Kind regards Franky

Thank you very much for your well meant reaction.

The ‘questionaire’ is to determine where the depiction of Januari scene came from, if possible from which  artist. I’m looking after the story (history) of the source of the plate, in this case “January”. Since all the factories used the same perforated templates for each of the months, there should be a source for each month- or zodiac plate of these series. As you know, see also link below to Robert Aronson for more explication.

Please give the source of your claim that these plates where exclusively made in blue and white, I don’t have the library resources nor have I acces to the orderbooks of the 18th century factories.

I know of at least two Polychrome plates without the denomination of the Month or Zodiac Sign which represent respectively May and June in these series:

https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/collection-ann-gordon-getty-wheatland-online/pair-dutch-delft-polychrome-plates-330/193324

Please use the links below for direct comparision:

https://www.aronson.com/delftware-plate-series/

https://www.aronson.com/object/d2062-set-of-twelve-months-plates/

 

With kind regards,

your friend,

Jeff