PRESS & PRAISE
“Beyond Blue and White taps into what every collector of antiques knows to be true: The decorative arts are more than mere objects where beauty meets function—they are the tactile messengers of histories forgotten.”
– The Wall Street Journal
“Genevieve Wheeler Brown, an expert in the decorative arts, has traced the history of Delfware, as it fueled the Dutch Republic economy in the early 1600s before enjoying waves of popularity, including the Delft craze in America in the late 1800s…”
– ARTnews
“Book recommendation: Beyond Blue and White – The Hidden History of Delftware and the Women Behind the Iconic Ceramic, by Genevieve Wheeler Brown. The book uncovers the untold stories of women connected to 17th–19th century Delftware. Through makers, patrons, and collectors, Genevieve Wheeler Brown reveals how this beloved ceramic tradition reflects female experience across centuries, richly illustrated with historic objects and documents.”
– Ceramics Now
The Art Newspaper’s Book Club, August 2025 Book Bag Selection
Beyond Blue and White named NPR’s Here & Now Editors’ Pick
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“Wheeler vividly brings to life every era in her path. Drawing from archival documents, she sets the scene for each woman, using descriptions of smell, sight, and sound to conjure a Pall Mall china shop or a canal-side pottery. Cleverly interwoven is the heavier factual history—politics of the Dutch Republic, the makeup of clay used in various ceramics. Although it is an easy and enjoyable read, it is also an immensely didactic one. As someone who generally gravitates to twentieth-century history, learning more about the Dutch Republic and women’s rights within it was my greatest takeaway—spanning as it does so many centuries and two continents, there is much to learn in its pages, and not just about the very engaging, intelligent, and dynamic women profiled.”
– Laura McLaws Helms, Sighs and Whispers
“When Brown is asked to review a large, private collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Delftware, she finds herself on a search for the stories of its creators and collectors. These are stories that go beyond descriptions of the pieces and their provenance. Instead, they are about the women who ran potteries and the women who acquired and assembled collections of the Delftware they made. Brown’s bibliography is extensive: She consulted archival collections, numerous histories, and scholarly articles. Museum- and academic-library collections will want to add this title, as will public libraries whose patrons include Delftware devotees.”
– Booklist
“A journey through history as delightful and intricate as the artform it follows. The author’s hand tracing a path for us to follow, over the surface of a gleaming puzzle-jug and through the lives of the women who intersected with it.”
– Naomi Novak, New York Times bestselling author of Uprooted and A Deadly Education
“A captivating history of Delftware and the extraordinary women who ran the potteries and collected the beautiful Dutch ceramics, as well as the innovative and inspiring women who created the arts institutions that would display Delftware to a broad audience. Framed in an engaging and quick paced personal narrative, Brown weaves a brilliant historical story. I highly recommend this book!”
– Leslie Banker, author of Think Like a Decorator
“Brown shows us that the story of blue and white is not black and white at all. This is a richly hued narrative filled with depth and surprises. Some of the best characters are the objects themselves, improbable Delftware survivors—desired, dusted, coveted, ignored—now pointing us to a series of remarkable women fiercely devoted to the medium over centuries.”
– Christine Coulson, author of Metropolitan Stories and One Woman Show
“A quest to uncover a New York fine arts mystery, told as if in the delicate northern light of a Vermeer painting. I loved it: I won’t look at Dutch porcelain in the same way again, and I might not look at the Netherlands in the same way again either.”
– Victoria Finlay, author of Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World and Color: A Natural History of the Palette