User:Florisvanraaijen
Tulip vase
The tulip vase, or pyramid vase, is a vase designed to put in cut flowers and espcially tulips, but it primarily serves as scenery. They were first made in the 17th century and they are decorated with Delfts blauw or Chinese decoration. Replica's of the original Tulip vases were made in China and got imported by the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. The Delftware is worldfamous because of it's specific blue colour which is used to decorate the earthenware.
History and origin
The tulip vase is a form of delftware faience and Delftware originated from the attempt to imitate Chinese porcelain, the Dutch potters tried to copy it, but they did not succeed. The stackable tulip vases are made like that because the potters weren't able to make the vase out of one peace around 1700, it would collapse while firing it. Tulips were introduced in The Netherlands at the end of the 16th century, the flowers came from Turkey and became a very expensive fashion flower and to this day tulips are still very popular flowers. Sometimes the pyramid vases weren not used as flower vase at all, just as showpiece.
Designs
Tulip vases can be round, square or oval and they are made in different sizes, the big ones have multiple floors and consist of loose stackable watertight elements and can be up to more then 1,5 meter high! At every floor of the vase you can insert flowers in the appropriate spouts around the vase. The big tulip vase is one part of the set consisting of two parts, the big tulip vases were used to decorate the hearth during the summer and the smaller vases would be placed on the table on a festive occasion.
External links
Rijksmuseum - Pots with spouts
--Florisvanraaijen (talk) 17:52, 8 June 2011 (UTC)