Dutch Delft Blue and White Posset or Caudle Bowl with Original Pierced Drainer and Cover

Tin-glazed earthenware, finely painted in rich cobalt blue with bold stylised tulips and composite floral sprays, the decoration arranged symmetrically about the body and echoed on the domed cover. The twin loop handles are ornamented with dotted blue dashes, while the cover bears a flower-form knop. The interior fitted with its original pierced half-liner or drainer, a rare survival, used for retaining sops or curds above the caudle or mulled ale below.
This sophisticated domestic vessel belongs to a small and early group of Dutch Delft caudle or posset bowls, produced in the closing decades of the seventeenth century when the Netherlands dominated European tin-glazed manufacture. Its crisp white body and cool cobalt palette, combined with the balanced floral arrangement and neatly banded borders, typify the output of the Delft workshops of Lambertus Cleffius and Gerrit Pietersz Kam, whose pieces of the 1680s and 1690s show identical painterly idioms.
Minor rim fritting and small losses consistent with age and use; short hairline to the cover; glaze wear to high points.