Dutch Floral Tiles

Dutch tiles are the focus of a renewed interest among collectors and art historians, but scholarly publications on the subject remain scarce. Now Ella Schaap fills this vacuum by looking at the flowers depicted on the tiles and pairing them with the prints that served as models. Dutch Floral Tiles in the Golden Age focusses on the most active period of tile production in the Netherlands, spanning the years 1570 to 1670. The book is divided into five chapters. The first chapter provides a short survey of the history, utilization, and production of tiles in the Netherlands. The second chapter, 'The Botanical Renaissance', examines the influence of the herbals and florilegia on tile decoration. The third chapter discusses the dense coloration of fruit and flowers seen on panels of ornamental polychrome wall tiles. The fourth, and most important, chapter lists in alphabetical order the Latin name of each flower and the print from which the decoration was derived. The last chapter gives brief biographies of the botanists mentioned in the previous chapters. Dutch Floral Tiles in the Golden Age is a beautifully illustrated book, in color and in black and white, of interest to the tile connoisseur and historic botanist, and to the enthusiastic gardener as well as the growing number of tile collectors.