Drenched in Delft: A fresh take on the design classic, from the team at Marlborough Tiles 

Delft is blooming in popularity this year, as a new generation of interior designers and discerning homemakers falls for its delicate designs and that characteristic blue and white palette. The Delft look has been beloved for centuries, but today’s fresh new take sees every available surface drenched in delicate, hand painted, vintage designs.

In a world of fast fashion and mass production, the provenance of the objects we surround ourselves with has become as important as their aesthetic and functional qualities. Founded in 1936, Marlborough Tiles is proud to be the UK’s oldest surviving maker of traditional handmade, hand painted Delft tiles. To this day, our artists use the same batch of Delft blue pigment procured by our female founders nearly 90 years ago. 

We are, to our knowledge, the only makers in the country still painting Delft using the traditional technique, whereby each stroke is painted by hand, ‘wet on wet’ into the tile’s raw glaze, before it is fired. This way, the fluidity of brushstroke that makes authentic Delft so instantly recognisable is preserved.

Today, we are pleased to share with you a set of images of a blue shaker kitchen saturated with handmade, Classic Delft tiles, on an artisan tile body, painted by hand in Rosalind Blue – the original Delft pigment, named after our founder. We hope that these images will be useful to support your trend editorial for 2024.

For high resolution, print ready versions of these images and many others from the shoot, including process images, please contact Isobel:

isobel@marlboroughtiles.com