Quezi

Painted wall covering with an unearthly Chinese pavilion - but do the flowers and fruit look European? (photo by Taco Tichelaar - PD)

Chinoiserie was a new fashion in the 18th century when China and the Far East seemed incredibly exotic to people in Europe. Imported arts and crafts had an excitingly different beauty from those made at home, and some were clearly superior to anything European – especially Chinese porcelain.

Designers and craftsmen wanted to recreate the style in the west. Since they knew little about distant Asian cultures their choices can look odd to us today even when the overall look is a fair imitation to non-expert eyes. Decorative scenes may show a mythological creature in a vaguely oriental landscape, or an elegant lady with Chinese parasol and Parisian hairstyle.

Chinoiserie is a French word for “Chinesery” or Chinese-looking stuff, that wasn’t yet thought of when the trend peaked in the 1750s.  It was much later that commentators tried to find a name for decorative styles based on western visions of China: ways of imagining that distant country after limited exposure to imported art, and a mixture of fact and fiction.  The style lasted quite well. European homes went on adding touches of oriental design through the 19th century and have never really stopped.

In the mid-1700s some rich landowners were even building Chinese pavilions in their grounds, but more middling households were also enthusiastic about this style. They could have a few oriental or oriental-looking objects around – lacquer boxes or screens, vases or figurines. Grand furniture for those who could afford it was carved with distinctively non-European ornamentation, like this dragon-decorated bed.

Later in the century the fashion swung toward a more formal, classical style in some Georgian homes, but nevertheless the enthusiasm for Chinese-looking decorative accessories had come to stay. Tea-drinking was an upmarket habit at first, still quite new in the 1700s, and also emanating from China. Prosperous families needed suitable equipment for taking tea. Chinoiserie tea-sets and caddies were an alternative to fine silver services.

Porcelain was the export Europeans found it hardest to compete with. Success was patchy. Very few manufacturers managed to produce anything resembling fine white eggshell porcelain. Nevertheless by about 1800 there were many substitutes for imported ceramics. Ming blue and white style was popular, and had inspired Delft pottery even before the main fashion for this look. The blue willow pattern design introduced in England a little before 1800 was a standard chinoiserie design on British tableware for much of the 19th and earlier 20th centuries. White and pink dinner services in famille rose style from the 1800s are another example of Chinese  design becoming a “normal” choice for western homes, even those with no special emphasis on oriental style.

Wallpaper with elegantly curving branches, blossom, birds and insects eventually became a well-established chinoiserie design element in country mansions and wealthy city houses. But the canvas wall-covering in the photo above would have seemed rare and exotic when it was painted in the Netherlands around 1765.