How was it that Delft faience developed into an icon in the hall of Dutch stereotypes, along with tulips, windmills and Volendam maids in traditional dress? It did not happen automatically. In the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many factories were producing Delftware, turning out plaques, bowls and plates, vases, jugs and salt cellars, Chinese figurines and animal figures, in blue-and-white or polychrome, for the domestic and international markets and with a string of artistic and technical innovations. By around 1850, however, this industry had lost momentum; the interest in Delftware had evaporated.

The focus in this chapter is on the role played by Henry Havard in the rediscovery and renewed appreciation of Delftware in the second half of the nineteenth century. Havard was born in 1838 and moved with his parents from the town of his birth (Charolles in Burgundy) to Paris, where during the Second Empire he became involved with republican and radical organizations such as the Ligue Internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté (International League for Peace and Freedom). This in turn led him to become an active member of the Paris Commune in 1871. The suppression of the rebellion ushered in a long period of exile for Havard in Belgium and mainly in the Netherlands. How was a French exile able to enrich the Dutch canon with a product that came to be prized not just in the Netherlands, but among collectors throughout Europe? This is the story of the (re-)birth of a quintessentially Dutch national product in a transnational context.