Royal Delft Commemorative Space Plate First Astronauts - 1961

The tin glazed earthenware plate decorated in shades of blue with in the center 
stylized flowers surrounded in a roundel with the text:
De Eerste Astronauten 1961 (The First Astronauts.)
The plate commemorating the first astronauts in space.
1 = Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968)
A Soviet pilot and cosmonaut aboard the first succesful crewed spaceflight on the Vostok 1 with the orbit of the earth in 108 minutes.
2 = Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) 
was an American astronaut. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space.
Notice the imaginative way the flowers of Holland were used in the central theme to give the feeling of a satellite traveling around the moon. The rim with repeating stylized flowers and stars.
Signed on the back in underglaze blue for:
DE PORCELEYNE FLES  -  ROYAL DELFT
   DELFT  -  HOLLAND  &  CG = 1962
Painter’s initials: LHA =  Leo Hartsuiker
Employment dates: 1953 - 1972   
Literature:
This plate is not shown in Rick Erickson - Royal Delft.
 Only listed on Page 130 in Commemorative Plates.

Diam.:  18,2 cm.  (7,2 inches.)      
Weight: 281 grams.