A very rare Rozenburg Den Haag earthenware wall plate painted with an East Asian dragon, surrounded by an architectural rim, painted by Th. Verstraaten in the week of August 21-28, 1896.
The design of the decoration can be attributed to D.P. J. de Ruiter, who had been appointed chief painter a week earlier. From that moment on, the dragon made its appearance in various earthenware designs and, years later, also on Rozenburg’s eggshell porcelain. The (wildly popular!) dragon design was also copied by other earthenware factories at the time.
On this plate, the exotic dragon represents chaos and is tamed by the ordered, regular rim.
It can certainly also be seen as a ceiling image; The dragon towers in the night sky above a city with domed roofs or temple roofs.
This horned dragon is strongly inspired by Hiroshige’s ‘Dragon in Clouds’ (c. 1830) and also by Anton Seders’ dragons in ‘Das Thier in der dekorativen Kunst’ (1896). Read more about this at: Dragons in Dutch Art Nouveau
The wall plate is 44cm in diameter, model 91, marked with factory mark, year mark, wo 758 and incised no. 222
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