Rozenburg Den Haag, Roelof Sterken, 1903

An eggshell porcelain Rozenburg Den Haag vase with a stylized ‘Art Nouveau’ decoration of ‘Love-in-a-mist’, design by Roelof Sterken, 1903. Height 23 cm, work order number 1044 from December 1903. Ten pieces were produced under this work order, and according to the archives, these went to the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, a few months later. The painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag had been appointed government commissioner earlier in 1903 (the American press called him ‘Royal commissioner’) and was responsible for the Dutch art exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, as it was formally called. Mesdag had his own section, which was likely many times larger than Rozenburg’s ‘stand,’ as there is an impressive list of painters Mesdag had commissioned to create work for. More than 160 paintings by just as many important painters from that period, including work by Akkeringa, Apol, Breitner, Israels, etc.

And Mesdag also had a ‘wish’ list of earthenware and porcelain from Rozenburg, which he wanted for his painting exhibition. Undoubtedly, he must have wanted the important pieces to display alongside the paintings.

The Rozenburg factory itself stood on another part of the immense site, in the so-called ‘Palace of Varied Industries’, which looked like this from the outside:

This was the Rozenburg stand, with the earthenware on the left of the photo and the porcelain on the right:

Rozenburg at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904