BK-14985-B

About this artwork

Vrouwenfiguur van faience, in de vorm van een herderinnetje met een vogelkooi. Wit geglazuurd.

Art Historical Context

This charming faience figurine, titled *BK-14985-B*, depicts a petite shepherdess cradling a birdcage, standing just 21. cm tall. Crafted anonymously between 1750 and 1770, its white-glazed surface gleams with a smooth, porcelain finish, capturing the delicate innocence of pastoral life. At a modest 11 cm wide and 7.5 cm deep, it's perfectly scaled for a mantelpiece or shelf, inviting close admiration. Faience, a tin-glazed earthenware prized in 18th-century Europe—especially in the Netherlands and Delft workshops—allowed artisans to mimic finer ceramics affordably. The white glaze here highlights the figure's simple form and whimsical details, like the birdcage, reflecting Rococo tastes for lighthearted, romanticized scenes of rural shepherds and shepherdesses. These motifs evoked an idealized countryside escape amid urban Enlightenment life. Such figurines held cultural sway as everyday luxuries, adorning bourgeois homes and symbolizing leisure and nature's joys. Though anonymous, this piece exemplifies the era's masterful blend of functionality and fantasy in ceramic art.

About the Artist

anonymous

In the vast tapestry of art history, "Anonymous" stands not as a singular individual but as a collective designation for countless unidentified creators whose works have endured across millennia. These artists, spanning prehistoric cave painters to medieval illuminators and folk craftsmen, produced the foundational layers of human visual culture. Prior to the Renaissance, when individual fame emer...