DELFTWARE: Faience Production at Delft

English text.; Hardcover (with dust jacket).; 28 x 33 cm.; 2.1 kg.; 201 pages with colour and black and white illustrations.; Used with signs of wear on the exterior and interior. The dust jacket shows edge wear, scuffs and scratches on the front cover, spine and back cover, small tear and chip at the top of the spine and also a small tear at the bottom of the spine. Interior with signs of wear, namely minor yellowing on front and rear free endpaper.; Translated from the French, La Faience de Delft, French-language edition: 1980, Office du Livre, Fribourg, Switzerland.; Delftware has a universal reputation, and is represented in all the ceramic col- lections of the great museums of the world. This exquisite, lavishly illustrated book reveals the importance of faience production at Delft in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as it influenced the history of European ceramics. Newly increased trade with the Orient, led by the Dutch East India Company, enabled the earthenware makers of Delft to become familiar with and absorb the essence of Sino-Japanese ceramic art. In this way, a new fashion began that set the pace for potteries in France, Italy, Spain and England. Parallel to this adaptation of an "exotic" style, the Dutch genius for innovation was evident in low-temperature (petit feu) firing, the use of gilding, and the attainment of extraordinarily vivid hues in high-fired polychrome decoration. Henry-Pierre Fourest, curator-in-chief at the Musée National de Céramique at Sèvres, places the rise of delft- ware in the social and artistic climate of the times. An index, an appendix of important factory marks and a select bibliography add to this book, a lovely presentation of a major form of ceramic art.…