The provenance of Royal Delft “William & Mary” is the commission in the 1600s of thematic tile plaques (manufactured in Delft) based on a design by Daniel Marot, who worked as a principal designer to William of Orange and also worked at William and Mary’s court in England and who may have played a pivotal role in furnishing and decorating the Water Gallery at Hampton Court Palace. A blue Delft vase is within a three-lobed ornament or trefoil surrounded by a cartouche with large curling acanthus leaves and flowers. Filled with diamond ornament on either side of the trefoil, a bird sits on the cartouche. Delft tiles were often used to seal damp walls from moisture and as Stadholder of Holland and King of England, William III decided to tile the walls on the Thames-side rooms to keep out the dampness with exceptionally beautiful glazed tiles. The project was never completed, as Mary died in 1694, and the rooms were demolished as early as 1700. The plaques sold piece by piece and disappeared, only resurfacing in 1923 when an art dealer put ten for sale. They are now housed at various museums, including the Metropolitan Museum, Rijksmuseum, Default, Cophenhagen, and Sevres. With reverence for the originals and equal parts artistic license, we carefully resorted their beauty on a new medium.
