Made in China: 500 Years Of Chinese Export ceramics

The desire for the luxury goods of China (tea, silk, and porcelain) was the motivating factor for a global competition to establish and maintain trading networks to Asia. “Chinese export ceramics,” a hybrid art executed in materials not available in the West until the eighteenth century, became part of this commodities trade.

This ceramic art reflected the needs of the Western customer and the artistic traditions of the Chinese craftsmen—a meeting and mingling of cultures and art that produced a new, unique and engaging category of decorative and fine art.

For five hundred years, since the founding of the sea trade, Chinese porcelain and stoneware have been collected by traders from around the world. The history of the finest and the most common wares will be explored through visual records and surviving collections of Chinese export ceramics.