Royal Tichelaar Makkum is the oldest continuously operating company in the Netherlands, still making painted ceramic tile after more than 400 years on the same site – although it seems they started out manufacturing more bricks than anything else back in the days when the Netherlands still belonged to Spain and when blue-and-white was only beginning to be a sort of Dutch national religion. There are hundreds of available designs in the on-line store. I had a hard time picking only a few to show here. The ones with lettering (below) are custom-made to mark special occasions, like births or retirements.
