Rozenburg Den Haag, eggshell porcelain tea set, J.W. van Rossum 1911

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Rozenburg Den Haag, eggshell porcelain tea set, J.W. van Rossum 1911. A rare three-piece tea set consisting of a teapot with lid, sugar bowl with lid and a creamer, painted with three-coloured purple violets. Particularly striking is the shape of the creamer, with a large curved pouring spout and an octagonal bottom, where both the teapot and the sugar bowl have a round bottom. Of the teapot, model 260, only 29 copies were made in total, 36 pieces of the creamer model 261 were made and 35 pieces of the sugar bowl model 262. The teapot is 13 cm high by 17 cm wide, the sugar bowl is 10½ cm high and the cream jug is 9 cm high. This tea set was made in work order number 697, in October 1911 and we previously had an almost identical set in our collection, made in work order number 67, in January 1911: Rozenburg, Den Haag, J.W. van Rossum, 1911

Category: Sold

Description

At the age of 15, Jacob van Rossum started to work at the Hague Plateelbakkerij Rozenburg in October 1895 as an apprentice painter. His talent soon became apparent, especially on earthenware tile plates and wall dishes that he takes care of. When the factory started production of the later world-famous eggshell porcelain in March 1899, Jacob van Rossum, just 19 years old, is involved in the process.
In January 1900, a few months before the factory takes part in the World Exhibition in Paris, he designed and painted one of the factory’s most remarkable pieces: a 60 cm high eggshell porcelain vase with a large plumed lid and decorated with seahorses. At the time of the exhibition, the Rozenburg factory is donating this vase to the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres!

In the group photo from 1903, Jacob van Rossum, far right, has just been appointed master painter at Rozenburg. He is then 22 years old and his very confident pose in the photo is not by chance, he is the youngest master painter at that time. Together with the renowned master painter Sam Schellink, third from the right, he admires Japanese decorations in which the ornament has to reflect the shape of the object.

Where the Rozenburg decors by Sam Schellink on the eggshell porcelain are often naturalistic, the decors by Jacob van Rossum are often distinguished by a more stylized and modern rendering.