A Short Critical Review by Hans van Lemmen

'This is not a book to get an idea of the social, economic, or architectural history of Dutch delftware tiles, nor does it deal with the many imitations and emulations spawned by Dutch tiles in other countries such as Britain, Germany and France so there is no help here for collectors to distinguish foreign imitations from Dutch one. However, this is the first book that provides a difinitive classification of Dutch delftware tiles in terms of design types, names of designs and borders, corner motifs, subject matter, and dates, augmented by an extensive technical glossary which will allow any collector to identify their Dutch tiles with reasonable certainty. Nothing is foolproof of course, since the problem remains that you have to identify your delftware tile as a Dutch product and not mistake English, French or German delftware tiles for Dutch ones. Provided therefore that you have made the correct identifications in terms of Holland as the country of origin your tile is bound to be somewhere amongst the 2600 high quality illustrations in the book. This new book is an excellent piece of tile scholarship written by a great authority on Dutch tiles that will prove to become an indispensable guide for any serious collector.'