Dishes and pots

We don't know whether Maria stored her porcelain by type or whether the notaries who made the inventory did the grouping themselves. They did not name or label the groups, though they sometimes left a blank line between types.

The first two hundred items are more or less flat: platters to serve from and plates to eat from. The other ___ hundred were designed to contain liquids: bowls, jugs, pitchers, and tankards.

Plates, platters, and dishes

Total (all on p. 109 of the inventory): 264

  • 33 platters
  • 18 commemorative plates (6 each) with Leeuwenhoek's coat of arms, portrait, and Oude Kerk obelisk
  • 43 brown and blue Japanese plates
  • 9 butter dishes
  • 97 plates
  • 2 shaving bowls
  • 14 saucers
  • 7 soup bowls (and cornetjes)
  • 41 pots, jugs, pitchers, tankards

On the right (click to enlarge) is a Delft blue plate from the 1600's, about ten inches (26 cm) in diameter with a scalloped edge.

A blue concave platter (holle schotel)

4 smaller ditto

A concave platter, 4 large platters

4 smaller platters, 3 platters, 2 smaller platters

5 blue platters, 1 damaged platter

6 ribbed? fluted? (geribde) little platters, 8 ribbed platters

2 large porcelain concave bowls (hollebakken) or platters

Platters total: 33

6 plates (borden) with the Leeuwenhoek coat of arms

6 ditto with the portrait of the same

6 ditto with the obelisk in the Oude Kerk

Commemorative plates total: 18

6 brown Japanese plates (borden)

6 Japanese ?? (mappen)

6 ditto plates

12 blue porcelain plates

11 plates

Brown and blue Japanese plates total: 43

six butter dishes

2 enameled (geamalieerde) ditto

1 butter dish

Butter dishes total: 9

12 plates (borden)

20 ditto

12 ditto

12 ditto

7 ditto

3 ditto

7 ditto

20 brown plates

4 ribbed colored plates

Plates total: 97

A Japanese shaving bowl (scheerbekken)

A damaged blue ditto

Shaving bowls total: 2

2 saucers (schaaltjes)

2 white saucers

1 unpaired blue and white ditto

9 little saucers

Saucers total: 14

3 soup bowls (klapmutsjes)

2 large ditto

2 blue ?? (cornetjes)

Soup bowls (and cornetjes) total: 7

A Japanese set of 5 pieces

A large blue porcelain pot

A small blue set of 5 pieces

2 red bottles with necks

2 blue ?? (smoorpotjes) or bottles

2 ditto somewhat smaller

Two bottles

2 ?? pots (bagijne potjes)

2 blue beer tankards

1 oil and 1 vinegar jug and storage pitcher, colored

2 blue jugs

2 blue jugs with nozzles (pijpjes)

A cover or lid (hulmandetje)

2 blue sugar jars with tops

2 ditto smaller

2 ditto colored

1 blue sugar jar with top

2 blue chocolate mugs, 2 chocolate mugs, various

Pots, jugs, pitchers, tankards total: 41

 

schotel - Sewel's 1735 dictionary calls it a platter or dish. The most recent Van Dale dictionary indicates that it is a dish. When it's small, it's a saucer; when flat, a plate or platter; when rounded, a basin.

bord - The word now denotes a plate to put food on. In Leeuwenhoek's time, these plates were often painted and used to decorate the chimney ledge or walls. For example, Maria's inventory had 18 plates, six each with the Leeuwenhoek coat of arms, a portrait of Leeuwenhoek, and the obelisk in the Oude Kerk.

Japanse borden - We now call this Imari porcelain. These plates probably brought to Delft on A VOC ship and purchased by the Leeuwenhoeks.

schaal - Shallow and wide container, usually round, with a bottom   curved or at least less wide than the top, usually with a pedestal. Sewel's 1735 dictionary calls it a bowl or hollow dish.

scheerbekken - shaving bowls. They had a notch to fit under the chin and around the neck, similar to a bleeding bowl.

klapmutsjes - similar to today's wide, rimmed soup bowls. In Leeuwenhoek's time, large quantities, often acting as a ship's ballast, were exported from China to Europe. The detail on the left (click to enlarge) is from Still Life with Fruit and Lobster by Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606 - 1984).

cornetjes - ? vases shaped like cornets ??

pot -

fles -

smoorpotjes -

bagijne potjes -

kan -

bak -

hulmandetje -

koppen -

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