PROBABLY the world’s top dealer in Dutch Delftware Robert Aronson, who is the fifth generation at Aronson Antiquairs in Amsterdam, holds his annual exhibition from May 13 to 20.
Called Timeless Elegance it offers an unrivalled collection of 17th and 18th century Delftware and naturally many prices are high, but Robert says there are also pieces for new collectors.
“I have sold for six and seven figures but there is much for far far less” he says, but, while encouraging tyro collectors, he adds “I never lose the thrill of showing a truly rare or previously unknown object to a true Delft connoisseur.”
Truly rare is an exhibit close to Robert’s heart, a unique pair of massive c.1700-20 Cashmire pattern flower vases that Robert and his father Dave Aronson tried to buy in the 1990s.
Sadly, Dave (who was chairman of TEFAF) died in 2007 but his son (who is a TEFAF committee member) is “happy that I was able to finally acquire this unrivalled example of Dutch Delftware as it was so high on the ‘wish list’ of my father.”
Aronson Antiquairs was founded in 1881, coincidentally the same year as the Aronson gallery in Nieuwe Spiegelstraat was built.