The Netherlands has had a robust tile industry for many centuries. It was even a leading industry worldwide in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When people think of tiles, many think first and foremost of the well-known blue delftware, but many other types and styles of tiles have been produced in the course of more than four hundred years.
 

The Netherlands Tiles Museum owns a collection of more than 11,000 tiles and tableaus. The collection features mostly Dutch painted wall tiles from the seventeenth century up to the modern era, but it also includes ornamental floor tiles, sixteenth century hearthstones, and medieval tiles from Persia and Spain. The sheer infinite diversity of representations and ornaments on the tiles gives an impression of our ancestors' rich visual culture. Moreover, the collection illustrates the development of ceramics and the application of tiles in architecture and interior decoration.