Source: the venue’s website, checked on 04/11/2026.
In Delft, De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles is the only one of the 17th-century potteries still at work. Its painters still decorate the earthenware by hand, with a black paint that turns blue in the kiln, and they open the studio to visitors to teach them the gesture.
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Founded in 1653 by David Anthonisz van der Pieth, by around 1840 it was the last of the 32 factories the city counted in 1695, reduced to cheap printed pottery. In 1876 the engineer Joost Thooft bought it to revive Delft Blue with a tougher, English-style body. After a Grand Prix at the 1900 World’s Fair, it became Royal in 1919.
The painting workshop runs Tuesday to Sunday at 2 pm: everyone paints a tile in black paint, which is fired in the factory and delivered five to six weeks later, for €48.50 per person, museum entry not included. Groups of up to 24 book online; larger groups, or the blue-paint workshop from 10 people, write to the events team. Delft is a quarter of an hour by train from Rotterdam and The Hague.
Photo credits : Andy Li (Wikimedia Commons, CC0) ; LooiNL (Wikimedia Commons, Domaine public) ; Szilas (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0) ; Muesse (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0) ; Steven Lek (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
We design and lead a learning expedition that goes through this place. You can also design it yourself with Agent A\lex.
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