From Delftware to Porcelain, 1600–1780

By the sixteenth century the northern provinces dominated the shipping and fisheries of the Low Countries, and Dutch linen weavers and brewers were exporting internationally. In the decades of the Revolt, financial and commercial expertise and a range of new industries moved north. Tin-glazed pottery, for example, made in Antwerp since before 1512, was produced in Delft from 1584. In English it soon came to be called Delftware. Delft blue was among the closest European imitations of Chinese porcelain in the seventeenth century, before real porcelain began to be manufactured at Meissen in 1711. By 1670 there were 28 faïence factories in Delft alone, with more in Haarlem, Rotterdam, Gouda and elsewhere. Other ceramics, particularly Dutch tiles, were produced at Middelburg and Leeuwarden.