A Winterthur guide to Chinese export porcelain / Arlene M. Palmer

Introduction -- The China trade -- THe manufacture of porcelain -- Forms for the west -- Painted designs for the West -- Personalized porcelains -- The American trade -- Notes -- Selected bibliography.

This book consists of representative examples from the Winterthur collection hat have been selected and arranged to present a general introduction to the subject of Chinese export porcelain. Chinese porcelain was the delight, if not the passion, of Europe's soul in the eighteenth century. More than 50 million pieces of porcelain reached the West before 1800, creating and filling a need for tablewares and orame4nts and stimulating European production of imitative ceramics. As symbols of "the most remarkable of all countries yet known,": a country that few had actually seen, the creations of the Chinese potters never ceased to fascinate. -- Publisher's Note