A Chinoiserie-styled teapot. Meissen porcelain factory (manufacturer), Wine Pot in the Shape of a Peach, 1725, hard-paste porcelain painted with colored enamels over transparent glaze. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
During the middle of the eighteenth century, Europe was enraptured by a self-fabricated vision of a mysterious and distant East, colourfully expressed in the new decorative art style coined chinoiserie. This fascination with the East was not a novel or dramatic realisation in the eighteenth century. Rather, chinoiserie was founded upon a long tradition of exotic tales from travelers and explorers, such as Marco Polo in the fourteenth-century. However, it was the establishment of trading companies such as the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and British East India Company that acted as the genuine catalyst for this craze, and European visualisation of a luxurious Asian utopia.[1] The importation of textiles, lacquerware and porcelain from Asia became extremely desirable in the European market, and inspired British artists and designers, and artisans of mainland Europe to imitate Asian porcelain and express their vision of the East through the adoption of pseudo-Asian idioms and motifs.
The etymology of the word chinoiserie is French in origin and derived from chinois meaning ‘the Chinese’ and à la chinois translated as ‘in the Chinese style’.[2] Both of these phrases emerged in the early seventeenth century, however, the word chinoiserie only made its first appearance in the English language in 1883; more than a century after the style had reached its zenith in England, from 1750 to 1765.[3] England was a relative latecomer to the scene in terms of adopting the European Rococo style and chinoiserie; two styles that were closely interrelated. The above terminology, including the retrospective and formal identification of this style as chinoiserie, indicates that Europe had for the most part branded China as the exclusive source of prized, imported goods. Chinoiserie was actually not solely the stylistic product of Chinese influences, but also a reaction to luxury goods imported from Japan, India and other Asian countries.[4] As Cains argues, “from the beginning, chinoiserie was a syncretic expression of European imagining, in which cultural differentiation or complexities had no part.”[5]
The history and nature of chinoiserie is complex and difficult to trace, but it could be said the fascination with Cathay, or China, as we know it today, originated during the Middle Ages with those courageous souls who ventured to the East, and returned with exotic tales of a “quasi-mythical land.”[6] The early fourteenth century publication of The Travels of Marco Polo preserved and refined the tantalising vision of the East that had already begun to formulate in the imaginations of Europeans. Accounts from Marco Polo and subsequent travelers and explorers became central to the conception of chinoiserie; a style whose existence hinged upon a romantic, quixotic, yet flawed perception of China.[7]
The importation of luxurious goods from the East reached new and unprecedented heights in the seventeenth century. The wharfs and shops in all the major European trading cities were inundated with porcelain, silks and lacquerware and provided the visual stimuli needed to further reinforce the vision of the East as a land overflowing with riches, and ultimately bolstered the already fertile western imagination.[8] In response to these heavily in-demand goods, many ambitious and inspired European artisans began to produce European versions of blue-and-white Ming porcelain, lacquerware and fabrics embellished with designs believed to be a true representation of Cathay. In continental Europe, this craze for chinoiserie initially coexisted with the Baroque style in the seventeenth-century, and then thrived with the playful, pretty and distinctly anti-classical French Rococo style that developed in France during the early-eighteenth century, but did not spread to Britain until mid-eighteenth century. Chinoiserie soon became omnipresent in the decorative arts.[9]
Unknown artist (French), Fan, ca. 1760-1770, painted in watercolour on vellum, with carved mother-of-pearl sticks and guards, decorated with gilt and silver foil, marcasite and paste. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
This French, mid-eighteenth century watercolour on vellum, Fan embellished with gilt and silver foil and supported by delicately carved mother-of-pearl sticks beautifully illustrates chinoiserie manifested in European decorative arts.[10] The melding of characteristic chinoiserie decorative motifs and Rococo scrolls, vignettes, floral embellishment is emphasised in this fan, which was produced during the height of chinoiserie in ca. 1760-1770. Painted within the folds of the fan are Chinese men fishing in a pastoral scene; cherub-like Chinese children playing on a see-saw and playing musical instruments; pagodas and blossoms. It is believed that the featured chinoiserie scenes on this fan were derived from the broad repertoire of stock chinoiserie motifs and designs of Jean-Baptise Pillement (1728-1808), published in Robert Sayer’s design manual, The Ladies Amusement, ca. 1758-62.[11] It is clear that the excitement of this style lay in its novelty, luxuriousness and aesthetic qualities rather than any concern with accurately depicting China or recognising any significant symbolic motifs such as pagodas may hold in the East. Whilst the application of chinoiserie scenes and motifs was skilfully incorporated in fashionable items like fans, the imitation of Japanese lacquer and the revered Chinese porcelain proved to be much more problematic. First and foremost, Europe struggled to imitate the fine quality and pristine whiteness of Chinese porcelain, and that was before they could even consider painting such wares.
Although Europe boasted a long and rich tradition of small-scale manufacture in local, attractively decorated earthenware, the West lacked any knowledge of the mysterious materials and techniques required for the manufacture and embellishment of porcelain, which China had produced from at least the ninth century. So elusive, indeed, was the physical matter of porcelain that some people actually believed that porcelain the material itself possessed magical qualities and healing powers prior to circa seventeenth century. It is perhaps fitting that this naïve attitude towards the material culture of Asia corresponded to the overall European vision of the East as a distant and enchanted land inhabited by enigmatic, strange people.[12]
Marco Polo’s account of porcelain manufacture in the fourteenth century proved to be rather baffling and distorted. Likely, it was descriptions like this that initially halted any progress in European manufacture of porcelain:
They collect a certain kind of earth, as it were from a mine,
and laying it in a great heap, suffer
it to be exposed to the wind, the rain and the sun,
for thirty or forty years, during which time it is never disturbed.
By this it becomes refined and fit for being wrought into the vessels above
mentioned. Such colours as may be thought to be proper are then laid on,
and the ware is afterwards baked in ovens or furnaces.
Those persons, therefore, who cause the earth to be dug, collect it for their children…[13]
In the seventeenth century, both in Florence and in the Netherlands, attempts were made to manufacture porcelain, but Europe still could not match the exquisiteness, or the durability of Chinese porcelain.[14] It was not until the eighteenth century when the secret to true porcelain was discovered.[15] Hard-paste white porcelain; a mixture of kaolin, feldspar and quartz and fired at high temperatures began to be produced in the Saxon town of Meissen, Germany ca.1710, for the aristocracy and bourgeoisie.[16] The alchemist, Johann Friedrich Böttger, is to be credited with the discovery of the formulae of kaolin porcelain, the first of its kind in Europe. So desperate was Europe to manufacture true porcelain that Augustus the Strong actually held Böttger under house arrest.[17] The Meissen Porcelain Factory began producing porcelain imitating blue-and-white Ming ware almost immediately. However, it was not until the artist Johann Gregorius Höroldt (1696-1775) was employed, that a full palette of polychrome enamel colours was introduced, and the European chinoiserie fantasy on porcelain was launched.[18]
Meissen porcelain factory (manufacturer), Teapot, 1722 (made) and 1722-1725 (decorated), hard-paste porcelain , painted in enamels and gilded, Meissen, Germany. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
The creative genius of Höroldt is highlighted in an ornately embellished Teapot, made in 1722 and decorated in 1722/5.[19] This bulbous fine porcelain teapot delicately painted with exotically dressed Chinese figures wearing hats, with one figure seated upon a lilac and red plumed European horse. This sort of scene where Chinese figures are shown occupied in leisurely pursuits in idyllic landscape was very common in chinoiserie decoration. The painted chinoiserie is framed by gilt scrolls, iron-red and pink lustre borders together with vegetal ornamentation, including Indian flowers on the spout, and a curved handle and high-domed cover echoing the form of a temple or Indian mosque.[20] The rich ornamentation references the imagined riches of Cathay, with the appearance of the figures reflecting hybrid Asian influences, but above all the decoration is a European invention. As Winterbottom remarks, there was very little contact between Europe and China until the nineteenth century, and as a consequence China was relegated to a realm of fantasy and hedonistic pleasure.[21] Indeed, even with increasing knowledge of the East during the eighteenth-century, Europe remained staunchly adverse to cultural realities and continued to wilfully associate chinoiserie with China.
Dawn Jacobson recognises the interchange of ideas and styles between continental Europe and England, but also notes that England’s taste “never followed that of Europe absolutely, and chinoiserie developed its own particular, English, quality: less reverential in its imitation and less high-flown in its application.”[22] The coveted secret of porcelain manufacture eventually spread from Meissen to other European courts and porcelain factories during the middle of the eighteenth century.[23] In contrast to continental Europe, however, most of the established porcelain factories throughout Britain favoured the manufacture of the more porous, but easier to handle soft-paste porcelain over the more beautiful hard-paste porcelain.[24] The materials for soft-paste were cheaper and suited the cultural and social milieu of the English at this time, who were establishing themselves as a democratic nation in opposition to the royalist continental Europe. As a result of England’s political and religious climate, and ongoing conflict with France, it comes as no surprise that the success of chinoiserie in the English decorative arts differed to France, where the fluid assimilation of chinoiserie and the rococo style had taken place. As Jacobson notes, “in England, chinoiserie was a quite independent element, a wild and frivolous changeling of the parent style. Its eccentricity and complete lack of seriousness may have been due to the insouciant view of China already present in the English decorative tradition…”[25]
Royal Worcester (manufacturer), Teapot and cover, ca. 1755, Soft-paste porcelain painted with enamels, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
A mid-eighteenth century polychrome soft-paste Teapot produced in the Royal Worcester Manufactory demonstrates England’s adoption and adaptation of the rococo and chinoiserie styles. A smiling robed Chinese man, with a glorious wispy moustache standing in an idyllic landscape is depicted on the body of the teapot. As with all chinoiseries, the landscape intimately mirrors those found on Chinese ceramics, however the refreshingly charming, colourful, and guileless style of British chinoiserie made it particularly unique. Noticeably absent from this teapot is the heavy embellishment, delicate rococo scrolls and vegetal ornamentation that adorned Meissen’s teapot. In general, it can be agreed that the porcelain factories of England were unable to match the elegance and refinement of their continental counterparts, like Sѐvres in France, or Meissen.[26] Nevertheless, despite the simplicity of the English design, Haddad eloquently stresses that, “English ceramics were (still) part of the larger decorative style, called ‘chinoiserie’. Any object classified as chinoiserie was European in its origin but possessed elements adhering to the ‘Chinese taste.’”[27]
In contrast to continental Europe, where established porcelain factories were generally situated on monarchical grounds, or at the very least sanctioned supported by royal patrons, many English porcelain factories, however, were established in the provinces, such as Bristol, Derby, Lowesoft, Worcester and Caughley (the possible birth place of the iconic willow-pattern).[28] As such, British chinoiseries assumed a more rustic air in comparison to their continental counterparts. Even those like the Bow Factory who were located in the city of London retained a simple air, in line with English sensibilities. [29] The dazzling colours and patterns applied with childlike abandon were well suited to the anti-classical, limitless and dreamscape nature of chinoiserie decoration.
Bow Porcelain Factory (British 1744-1776), Plate, ca. 1755, soft-paste porcelain, 22.9 x 22.9 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
England’s ambivalent attitude towards the East is apparent in a mid-eighteenth century Plate from the Bow Porcelain Factory (British 1744-1776), created in the Chinese famille rose style.[30] The plate is decorated with a floating imaginative world inhabited by two willowy figures, likely mother and daughter, who stand beneath a silk tree beside an odd-looking reindeer. This colourful chinoiserie scene is encircled by a bold pink, blue and butter-yellow floral trim. Although sweet and charming, slightly sinister undertones can be discerned in this visual imagining of China. The slightly demoralising depiction of the Chinese figures may have been a deliberate attempt to reduce China, and the East in general from a powerful sophisticated nation into a delicate, artificial and frankly absurd entity. On the other hand, the production of porcelain objects in England would have served as a constant and perhaps uncomfortable reminder of the rich, long-standing traditions and technical superiority of the East. By integrating Asian influences and traditional European painterly traditions, Europe was perhaps able to relegate the strange ‘other’ into their familiar world and therefore come to grips with the changes in their world. Chinoiserie reveals a fascination with Chinese décor, patterns and motifs, but not their beliefs or philosophies, and conceivably exposes European ambitions and ideals rather than any awareness of China’s evolving and complex culture.[31]
The English, akin to their mainland ancestors, likewise envisioned China, or Cathay, as a mythical, unchanged land of watery vistas, palaces, pagodas, twisted trees, zig-zag bridges, soaring mountains and green meadows inhabited by a strange-looking race of people.[32] Although, it took longer for the rococo style to gain momentum in England than in mainland Europe, once it did, the chinoiserie style, which had already been faintly present during the seventeenth-century Baroque period, was liberated. The English fascination with China was most clearly expressed through their adoption and adaption of Chinese blue-and-white decoration on porcelain.
Royal Worcester (manufacturer), Basket, ca. 1755-1757. Soft-paste porcelain painted with underglaze blue and moulded, 13.9 cm x 38.4 cm x 33 cm. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
A Royal Worcester porcelain Basket, ca. 1755-7 highlights the eminent possibilities proffered by blue-and-white Ming porcelain in the development of distinctive chinoiserie decoration. The wares China produced specifically for the European market directly influenced the English markets perceptions and reinforced any existing preconceptions. This large, deep oval dessert basket features a Chinese landscape composed of an island with twisted trees and a pavilion surrounded by a lake and small boats. The fluted sides are decorated with English wildflowers and insects.[33] The design on the Basket exemplifies English technological innovations, whereby the landscape was transfer-printed in underglaze blue.[34] Although the form and function of the basket and the very inclusion of English-looking flowers is an European concept, there is a striking resemblance between the chinoiserie decoration and China’s shan shui patterns, which Europe most likely believed was a true reflection of China.[35] Shan shui, roughly translated as ‘hills and streams’ was a hand-painted pattern typically featuring willow trees, fisherman, birds, an island, pagodas and Chinese figures.[36] Although the landscape scene in both Chinese and English examples closely resemble one another, Worcester was unable to match the crisp white colour of the porcelain, and their blue is rather insipid and pale in comparison to the rich Chinese blue. The influence of shan shui on English chinoiserie is perhaps most apparent in the famous Willow Pattern.
Image from: John R. Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,” Winterthur Portfolio 41:1 (Spring 2007): 59.
The Willow Pattern, one of the most popular and recognisable English blue-and-white chinoiserie designs of the eighteenth-century cemented the idyllic image of China in the English minds, despite ironically being completely European in conception. The genesis of the Willow pattern remains a point of debate, but it is generally accepted that Thomas Minton, from the Caughley Factory, is to be credited with the creation of the original “Willow” prototype, in the 1780s.[37] Many variations of this design subsequently spread rapidly to other factories like the Spode Factory.[38] The design gradually changed in response to the creation of a narrative that became attached to the Willow Pattern.
The story tells of two star-crossed Chinese lovers: the daughter of a powerful and wealthy mandarin who resided in a luxurious mansion, usually depicted in the centre of the design, and the lowly bookkeeper of the father, named Chang. Divided by class and the treachery of the father, these two lovers find a way to surmount the obstacles that separate them. They are aided by a fisherman and elope together to a remote island with a chest of jewels to live happily ever after. In some versions, soldiers pursue the two lovers and Chang is murdered. However, others say Chang manages to evade the soldiers and the two relocate to another island where Chang achieves fame as a novelist; sadly though, his book on gardening exposes their location. Their house is set alight and the two lovers perish in the flames. Their souls are immortalised in the form of two doves; forever united.[39] This Cinderella story, which in reality possesses many parallels with a contemporary ‘Mills & Boon’ romantic novel was perfectly aligned to the prevailing English romantic sensibilities, and successfully preserved the European fairytale vision of a traditional, yet playfully frivolous and feminine China.
Spode (maker), Plate, ca. 1800-1820, Earthenware, transfer-printed in underglaze blue, made in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
The characteristic elements of the Willow Pattern design; the three figures dashing across a bridge; a willow tree central to the composition, and two doves flying together are illustrated in a plate produced by Spode in ca.1800-1820.[40] The inky-blue transfer print is far more vivid than the earlier eighteenth century example blue-and-white British porcelain and bears a closer resemblance to Chinese porcelain, indicating advances in European technology. It also indicates that Chinese design continued to be considered the pinnacle of porcelain production. The lover’s tale popularised the pattern, and the mass-production of porcelain by the nineteenth century dispersed this iconic image of China. Indeed, the design became so fashionable that the Chinese, largely for commercial purposes, ironically imitated this British chinoiserie pattern, which had been developed from Chinese prototypes.[41] This action on behalf of the Chinese only further cemented the notion in many people’s imaginations that the Willow Pattern must surely be linked to an ancient Chinese narrative or legendary proverb.
As the above demonstrates the chinoiserie style and concept is multifaceted and difficult to define, yet it could be said that it was a visual manifestation of Europe’s ethereal and timeless notion of the East. It was a product of speculation and imagination, and inspired by the importation of luxury goods like lacquer, silks and porcelain that featured idyllic landscapes. Chinoiserie was very much a European construct, but also deeply influenced by contact with Asia. Europe adopted certain ‘Chinese’ idioms, symbols and designs and adapted them to European style and taste, which in itself varied. England, for example, infused chinoiserie with a more rustic and simple air. When China began to imitate popular chinoiserie scenes like the ‘Willow Pattern’ for the European market, the concept of chinoiserie becomes muddled. The willingness of Asia to accommodate the taste and whims of Europe is extraordinary. To stay competitive in the trading market and maintain their pre-eminence in the manufacture of porcelain, it appears China was keen to nurture the West’s elaborate and fantastical vision of the East. Or at the very least, they showed little resistance to the flourishing stereotypes and idioms associated with Cathay in England’s visual culture. Perhaps China’s habit of indulging Europe’s idyllic vision of the East stemmed from the fact the decorative chinoiserie style was so disconnected from reality, and considered rather innocuous. The European creation of chinoiserie and application in the English decorative arts throughout the eighteenth century primarily demonstrates an enduring enthrallment with peculiarity of the ‘other’ that borders on fixated obsession with defining distinctions between the Occident and Orient.
Footnotes
[1] Carol Cains, “Chinoiserie in Europe,” Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices (Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2015), 239.
[2] Cains, “Chinoiserie in Europe,” 239.
[3] Anna Jackson, “Chinoiserie,” in The V&A Guide to Period Styles: 400 Years of British Art and Design (London: V&A Publications, 2002), 59.
[4] A. Hyatt Mayor, “Chinoiserie,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 36:5 (1941): 112.
[5] Carol Cains, “Chinoiserie in Europe,” Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices (Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2015), 239.
[6] Cains, “Chinoiserie in Europe,” Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices, 239.
[7] Carol Jacobson, “Grandeurs & Treasures: The Origins of Chinoiserie,” in Chinoiserie (London: Phaidon, 1999), 13.
[8] Hilary Young, “Manufacturing outside the Capital: The British Porcelain Factories, Their Sales Networks and Their Artists, 1745-1795,” Journal of Design History 12:3 (1999): 257 – 260.
[9] Jacobson, “Grandeurs & Treasures: The Origins of Chinoiserie,” 26.
[10] Victoria and Albert Museum, “Fan” <http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O87184/fan-unknown/> (accessed 25th October 2015).
[11] Victoria and Albert Museum, “Fan” <http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O87184/fan-unknown/> (accessed 25th October 2015).
[12] Jacobson, “Grandeurs & Treasures: The Origins of Chinoiserie,” 25.
[13] Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007), 254.
[14] Steven Parissien, “European Fantasies of Asia,” in Encounters the meeting of Asia and Europe 1500-1800, eds. Jackson & Jaffer (London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2004), 348 – 350.
[15] Jacobson, “Grandeurs & Treasures: The Origins of Chinoiserie,” 26.
[16] Robin Hildyard, European Ceramics (London: V&A Publications, 1999), 46.
[17] Matthew Martin, “Meissen Porcelain Factory,” The World of Antiques & Art 74 (2008): 158.
[18] Clare Le Corbeiller, “German Porcelain of the Eighteenth Century,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 47: 4 (Spring, 1990): 17.
[19] Victoria and Albert Museum, “Meissen Teapot,” <http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O333564/teapot-meissen-porcelain-factory/?print=1> (accessed 1st November 2015).
[20] Victoria and Albert Museum, “Meissen Teapot,” <http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O333564/teapot-meissen-porcelain-factory/?print=1> (accessed 1st November 2015).
[21] Matthew Winterbottom, “Chinoiserie in Britain: Brighton,” The Burlington Magazine 150:1267 (2008): 704.
[22] Dawn Jacobson, “From Chinese Art to Chinoiserie,” in Chinoiserie (London: Phaidon, 1999), 32.
[23] Martin, “Meissen Porcelain Factory,” 158.
[24] J. Victor Owen, “The Geochemistry of Worcester Porcelain from Dr. Wall to Royal Worcester: 150 Years of Innovation,” Historical Archaeology 37:4 (2003): 86.
[25] Jacobson, “No Small Spice of Madness: Rococo Chinoiserie in English Interiors,” 125.
[26] John R. Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,” Winterthur Portfolio 41:1 (Spring 2007): 57.
[27] Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,”57.
[28] Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,”57.
[29] Jacobson, “No Small Spice of Madness: Rococo Chinoiserie in English Interiors,” 144.
[30] Anna Jackson, “Chinoiserie,” in The V&A Guide to Period Styles: 400 Years of British Art and Design (London: V&A Publications, 2002), 62.
[31] Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 134.
[32] Jacobson, “Grandeurs and Treasures: The Origins of Chinoiserie,” 10.
[33] Victoria and Albert Museum, “Basket,” <http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O183082/basket-worcester-porcelain-factory/> (accessed 29th October 2015).
[34] Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,” 62.
[35] Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,” 58.
[36] Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,” 58.
[37] Gillian Neale, Miller’s Encyclopedia of British Transfer-Printed Pottery Patterns: 1790-1830 (London: Miller’s, 2005), 74.
[38] Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,” 63.
[39] Haddad, “Journeys to Distant Cathay: Constructing China with Ceramics, 1780–1920,” 65.
[40] Geoffrey Godden, “The Willow Pattern,” Antiques Collector (1972): 148.
[41] Cains, “Chinoiserie in Europe,” Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices, 248.
References
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Tait, Hugh. “Pair of Chelsea Porcelain Vases.” The British Museum Quarterly 21:1 (1957): 20.
Tarabra, Daniela. European Art of the Eighteenth Century, trans. Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2008.
Victoria and Albert Museum. Style Guide: Chinoiserie. <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/style-guide-chinoiserie/> (accessed 2nd October 2015).
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– Kirstie Morey
Collage 