The West’s East Asian Fantasy

The pattern printed on this bandbox is not a typical motif for a North-American object. Blue and white colors are used as the basic color of this print, and there is no ground color, which leaves a lot of white space. The style of this decoration is similar to the blue-and-white porcelains produced in Europe at the timesee: [ThingsThatTalk] (https://thingsthattalk.net/en/zone/westernciv/t/ttt:TUpfKy) and is known as Chinoiserie. Chinoiserie does not fully respect Chinese originals but reflects European tastes and imaginations of East Asia. One of the frequently used Chinoiserie designs is this type of bird-and-flower motif.

How did this style become popular in Europe and America? Up until the 18th century, European and American designs mainly followed the rules of classicism and baroque design. As global trade networks with the mysterious “Far East” became ever more important in the 18th century, luxurious wallpaper was one of the prized things (along with porcelains, lacquers, and silks) widely imported from China, often from Canton (fig. 3). Just like Chinese porcelains, Chinese wallpaper was eventually emulated in Europe and the US.