“After the Chinese taste”: Chinese export porcelain and chinoiserie design in eighteen-century Charleston

Abstract

Chinese export porcelain is one of the most commonly found ceramics in the Charleston area, constituting as much as 24% of the overall ceramic assemblage at many archaeological sites. Chinese porcelain was but one part, however, of a broader stylistic language known as Chinoiserie in the 18th century. As international trade expanded, the complete range of Asian export luxury goods—Chinese silks, Indian cotton textiles, Chinese lacquer and hardwood furniture, Chinese wallpaper, and reverse paintings on glass—became popular throughout the European world. The European enthusiasm for Asian export goods inspired western designers both technologically—with the invention of porcelain—and stylistically, as they combined Asian and European motifs in whimsical, Chinese-inspired designs for architecture and interior decoration. The more ephemeral objects, such as textiles and wallpaper, rarely survive in the archaeological record, although their presence can be established in period newspaper advertisements and probate inventories. As one of the wealthiest cities and most active trading centers in 18th-century North America, Charleston, South Carolina, provides rich documentation for the presence of Asian export luxury goods and Chinese-inspired designs in the American colonies. By importing these goods and ordering locally crafted objects in the Chinese taste, Charleston’s colonial gentry demonstrated their ability to emulate their European counterparts and adapt the latest European fashion to their own domestic interiors.