Plateelbakkerij Zuid-Holland
Collectors Weekly: Can you tell us a bit about the history of Gouda pottery?
Lonsdale: There isn’t a factory called Gouda pottery; the pottery is called that because the main factories were in Gouda. Gouda (pronounced ‘how-da’) is the generic term we use for all the pottery factories in Holland – all Dutch pottery other than Delftware, that is.
The area around Gouda had clay to make pots, which is why most of the factories settled there. A lot of the clay also came from England. The Dutch started producing clay pipes about 1740, and some of the factories that produced clay pipes turned to making pottery because there was demand. They didn’t do it for love; they did it for profit. People wanted pottery for their home.
This style of pottery was pioneered in about 1898 by a company called Plateelbakkerij Zuid-Holland, or PZH, but they didn’t produce the type of pottery that you see on our website. That wasn’t made until about 1910 when they discovered a new process to produce matte glazed pottery. It was known as the Rhodian process, which is actually the name of one of the most popular decors. It was known as matte glazed pottery.
Collectors Weekly: What characterizes the Gouda pottery that you have showcased on your website?
Lonsdale: The flowery and curvaceous designs. Whereas Holland started with Art Nouveau. Mainly you concentrate on the matte glaze, which for us is the mixture of abstract and floral designs. You can mix the two together and it makes a lot of bright colors. The use of bright colors and the mixture of floral, abstract, and geometric designs all on the same piece is a lot more attractive to us.
Collectors Weekly: Was there a strong differentiation between the Art Nouveau movement and Art Deco in terms of Gouda designs?
Lonsdale: Not necessarily between the periods… the designs, shapes, forms, and patterns blend together. Holland also produced simple abstract designs which are definitely Art Deco, not Art Nouveau. Whichever design you like, that is the most attractive part of it. They produced abstract floral – not just the Art Nouveau floral, but abstract floral, which sounds a bit silly. It wasn’t floral and it wasn’t abstract; it was a mixture of both. Of course, they also produced a lot of geometric designs, which a lot of Art Deco pottery did.
Collectors Weekly: Were there any particularly influential designers or pottery schools?
Carna, Zenith Factory - c.1923 to 1930 Painted by Thomas Johannes Luiten
Lonsdale: I’d have to say just the Amsterdam school. There were quite a lot of designers who worked for other factories and moved to Zuid-Holland when the PZH factories started. A lot of really good designers started working for PZH and carried on the designs from the Art Nouveau period into the Art Deco period. That’s what attracted us to them – the mixture of abstract forms with floral forms, which were highly unusual. No other pottery factory has done that. It’s not just one form; it’s a mixture of all different forms. I think what most people find attractive is the mixture of different bright colors.
Gouda pottery was exported by the millions all over the world. You name a country and it was exported to it; all over England, America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand. Millions of pieces were exported – vases, plates, you name it. They’re not hand-thrown, they’re all molded from liquid clay, but every one is hand-painted. That’s why there were so many different artists that worked for all the different factories.
They’re signed on the bottom, mostly by the person that painted them. It’s not really their signature in full but their initials, because when they were making them, they had to know which particular person made which pot. They were paid by the number of pots they produced, so the initial was used by the factories to determine how many pieces were made.
We collect all sorts, all designers, all painters, all years, from 1900 up to the 1950s and the 1960s. We collect everything.
Collectors Weekly: Was Gouda made in sets?
Lonsdale: Yes, there were some sets. There were lots of tea sets. There were smoking sets. There were drinking sets with trays and cups. There were individual pieces with pairs of vases. You can think of anything and it was made. A lot have survived in sets, but mainly you will find individual pieces, because sets tend to get broken up. One piece tends to get broken. You can still find sets, but most pieces you’ll find were part of a set or produced individually.
Collectors Weekly: Was there a certain period of time when people really started to get interested in collecting Gouda pottery?
Jugendstil, GeWi Factory - circa 1980 Painted by Paul A. Daelmans
Lonsdale: I don’t know when people started collecting Gouda pottery. We have some friends in Holland who’ve been collecting it for many years, a lot longer than we have. If I would guess when people first started collecting, it would be mainly after World War II.
You have to remember, pottery wasn’t made for collecting; it was made to be used. It would have been found in a lot of homes in Holland, and the people who owned it wouldn’t have thought twice about it. For them, it was everyday household pottery that just happened to be bright and colorful. After World War II when the factories started to close is probably when people started to take an interest in it.
I suppose you could say the heyday of Gouda pottery ended in the mid-1930s with the recession, which was all over the world. After that, a lot of the factories, not just Gouda factories but factories all around the world, just simply didn’t recover. During World War II, when the Germans invaded Holland, they took over the Zuid-Holland factory, and the employees were forced to make pottery for the German market. There were still some pieces made, but mainly they were forced to make pottery for the domestic German market.
Collectors Weekly: Are there certain Gouda pottery items that are particularly sought after?
Isolde, Arnhem Factory - c.1925
Lonsdale: We never use the word “rare.” I don’t think there’s such a thing.” Names such as Chris van de Hoef are highly sought after by collectors, and some of their pieces can command very high prices.
Most people start collecting Gouda pottery because they like the look of it. They probably even didn’t know what it was when they started out. Maybe they looked at a piece, thought it was nice, turned it over and saw it said “Gouda” on the underneath.
We get that in e-mails. People say, “We went to an antique shop and we picked up this piece because we liked it. Then we discovered that it was Gouda, and we went on the Internet and typed in the word ‘Gouda,’ and it brought us to your website.” They send us a picture and they want to know more about it. When we tell them information about it, they say “Well, perhaps we should collect some more.” It’s so colorful; it’s so bright. It does stand out.
Like I said, pottery wasn’t made for people to collect; it was made for people to buy. If the Arts and Crafts movement was what people liked, then that’s what the pottery factories would make. It’s the same reason why the pottery factory declined after the war: people’s tastes changed, so the factories had to start making items that people wanted. The trouble was that there were lots of other countries that started making it a lot cheaper.
