17th c. Framed Delft Tile

Found in Montpellier, this 17th-century Delft tile is hand-painted in cobalt blue on tin-glazed earthenware, the scene a soldier on horseback at full gallop, his cape and the horse's mane streaming behind him, a small flower painted into each corner. Tiles like this have been painted in the city of Delft since the early 1600s, when Dutch potters set out to copy the blue-and-white porcelain coming from China and ended up inventing a style all their own, a kind of painted journalism that pressed the soldiers, ships, and daily life of the Low Countries into squares of clay and set them by the thousand into the walls of Dutch homes. Sylvie hangs it on a wall alone, the kind of small thing that asks you to step closer.

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