The iconic tulip vase is directly linked to Royal Delft. Over the centuries, many different shapes have been produced, from charming tulip vases with different numbers of spouts and all kinds of beautiful decorative paintings to the beautiful hand-painted and iconic Tulip Pyramids with the well-known design of Royal Delft. The hand-painted tulip pyramids have been painted with great passion and attention by our master painters with flowers, birds or a beautiful Dutch landscape.
In addition to the world-famous Delft Blue, the makers of Royal Delft also create the multicolored polychrome collection. This decoration style is inspired by the colors used in the Mediterranean and it is these colors that give the pottery its typical character.
The tulip vase is available with hand-painted decoration and with a transfer technique decoration.
The icon of Royal Delft: the tulip pyramid. The imposing tulip pyramids are modeled on the late 17th century (royal) pyramids. More than 300 years after the first examples were developed in Delft, the blue and white tulip pyramid is a famous national icon with royal allure. The Delft Blue vases consist of a stack of increasingly smaller elements with spouts. Flowers can be placed in all spouts. We also have this iconic piece as a table decoration in a smaller version or in the multicolored polychrome.
In the 17th century, the tulip was a very exclusive and expensive flower and the tulip vase allowed prominent people to show how prosperous they were. The tulip vase was therefore a real status symbol.
Although the tulip is nowadays inextricably linked to the Netherlands, that is actually unjustified. The flower originally comes from Asia, where it was cultivated by the Turks and Persians. It was not until around 1560 that these globes found their way to the wealthy of Western Europe via diplomats and merchants. In the Netherlands, the tulip only gained some fame around 1600, when it quickly became a sought-after object. There was plenty of trading and speculation, which eventually led to a true ‘tulip fever’. In those years, extraordinarily expensive flower holders were also produced for the special, expensive tulip bulbs – the tulip vases.
The heyday of these special flower vases with spouts followed towards the end of the 17th century. The vases with spouts were then marketed in all sizes and designs and were very popular; also with the House of Orange, given that the stadtholder royal couple William and Mary had four pyramid vases produced.