Delft Tile Owl Rosette Red Clay (is it 16th Century?)

A stylised owl in ‘Italian circle band design’, corner motifs are quarter rosettes also from Italian style.

I made an earlier thread talking about my girlfriends aunt buying a lot with four delft tiles in and I saw this one as instantly interesting. Initially some people met it with doubts of it being as old as the style suggests. But I now have pictures of the tiles back. It is very thick and the clay is red. What I’ve read leads me to this being extremely early.

But it’s not the same duller red that I can find online. The rosettes in the corners are reminiscent of the Italian styles than inspired early 16th and 17th Century delftware. It looks to me to be a bad forgery because of the brightness of the red and the really good condition of the tiles. The paint colours aren’t consistent with early delftware tiles. Need a little help.

Sorry for the briefness of detail in the post just excited to know sooner rather than later

Not dissimilar to this : http://blog.antiquetileshop.com/history-of-dutch-delft-tiles/

 

It is definitely not Dutch, and doesn't look all that old. Never been used. Cute though.
20th century Italian?
Maybe @Walter Del Pellegrino can tell us more.

 

I not only have doubts about the age of the tile I now also doubt its origin. Your tile, as stated, appears to be red. This clearly implies it was made with a terracotta clay.
Dutch clay was a mixture of light, whitish local Tournai clay, Rhineland clay and lime rich Marl (imagine the White Cliffs of Dover on a summer afternoon). Thus the color of Delft clay varies from a Buff-Cream to White, never red.
I have often seen these tiles replicated. Many modern examples come from Asia and China.The owl on this tile appears to be so crudely done that I suspect it was made so as to give the appearance of having been created by an untrained amateur.

 

Having learnt more about delft this week I’m now sure too that it’s not genuine, wanted to be sure. Thanks, but I found this on red clay in early delft tiles but with them being rarer maybe it’s less commonly known. What do you think?

 

one would think that the glaze on your 17th cent tile would not be as clean as it looks...

 

Agreed, it’s just off in every way looking at it now
-colours
-glaze
-the back
-painting
Shame, but you buy to learn

 

And it would have crazing. The painting would be different and have more detail.
Nathan, the owl is the most recent and least valuable of the tiles your girlfriend's mother bought. I'm pretty sure there is some tourist town in southern Europe where you can find these in boxes on streetside stalls.
I'd rather see more of the others. The painter looks like it could be 19th century, the tableau tile is intriguing, even though it is only a small part of a scene.
As I said before, the two ship tiles were made some time in the 20th century.

 

Best to learn, then buy, but we've all been there.
Can't even begin to tell you how many people have shown us new Chinese porcelain and tried to convince us it had to be from such and such a dynasty because of a little curl in the top right hand corner, etc.

Tell her to stay away from 'Dutch' tiles.

 

Haha will be wary in the future. They were still cheap at least, no harm done. I can get pics of the others

 

These are the photos of the back of the other tiles. The painter is the only obviously new seeming one. The cliche of boats and windmills had to come from somewhere. I’d be thinking those two are 19th Century or that’s what the web has led me to. More modern tiles unless copies tended to have the modern ribbed backs.

 

I found one with the same corner motifs as the ship tiles, this one is 19th century:


The back of the painter is puzzling, looks like someone put an extra backing on for some reason.
Could we see a sideviews of all of them, and dimensions please, including thickness.

 

Yeh, I thought that was odd, the painter looks obviously not modern but the back is weird. I won’t be able to get more photos, I won’t see them for a while. I can’t get the measurements either I’m sorry haha, not having much luck.

Could you send me the link to that tile if you can find it again?