Chinoiserie: China in European design

Chinoiserie is European decoration and interior design in an imaginative Chinese style, popular especially during the Rococo of the 18th century. The word is French and means roughly Chinese things. Pagodas, Chinese figures, birds, flowering branches and lacquer were painted on walls, furniture, porcelain and fabrics, often mixed with genuine objects that had come from China with the East India companies. The Chinese Pavilion (Kina slott) at Drottningholm is one of the best-preserved examples in Europe.

Facts

The word: French for roughly Chinese things
Heyday: c. 1720–1780, during the Rococo
Motifs: Pagodas, figures, birds, flowering branches
Materials: Lacquer, porcelain, silk, painted wallpaper
In Sweden: The Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm, 1753 and 1763–69
Background: The trade with China, in Sweden 1731–1813

The trade that provided the motifs

In the 17th and 18th centuries the East India companies brought home porcelain, tea, silk, lacquer and painted wallpaper from China. The Swedish East India Company operated from 1731 to 1813 and shipped large quantities of Chinese porcelain to Gothenburg. The objects were expensive and exotic, and in Europe people wanted more of them than could be bought.

Chinoiserie arose when European craftsmen began to make their own versions. They knew little about the real China and freely mixed Chinese, Japanese and Indian motifs with the shells and scrolls of the Rococo. The result was a dream image, not a copy, and that is precisely why the style is so easy to recognise.

The Chinese Pavilion

The Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm was given as a birthday present to Queen Louisa Ulrika in 1753, then as a small wooden summerhouse. It was rebuilt in stone in 1763–1769 to designs by Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz. Inside, genuine Chinese lacquer panels and porcelain are mixed with Swedish imitations in the same rooms, and the lacquer surfaces in red and yellow have gold-painted landscapes.

The pavilion forms part of the Drottningholm World Heritage Site and is one of Europe’s best-preserved examples of chinoiserie. It shows how the style was used: not in the palace’s great halls, but in a summerhouse for pleasure and play, where the exotic was allowed to take its place.

Porcelain, wallpaper and furniture

European potters early on copied Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. Delftware was a response as early as the 17th century, and Musselmalet from Copenhagen in 1775 was based on Chinese models. In England the Willow pattern was created around 1790, with a Chinese bridge, a willow tree and two doves, and the story of the lovers was invented afterwards to sell it.

Hand-painted Chinese wallpapers from Canton were the most expensive wall covering of the 18th century, and European factories soon made printed imitations. Furniture was lacquered or given a European imitation of lacquer, and Thomas Chippendale’s pattern book of 1754 mixed Rococo and Gothic with Chinese motifs, as seen in the backs of many Chippendale chairs.

Chinoiserie in art and architecture

Painters such as François Boucher made Chinese scenes in the pastel colours of the Rococo, and the porcelain factories modelled Chinese figures. The style belonged to the Rococo and to the same playful taste as Watteau’s fêtes galantes.

The Swedish-born architect William Chambers travelled to China with the East India Company and in 1757 published a book on Chinese buildings. He built the pagoda at Kew Gardens in 1762, and Chinese pavilions and bridges became common in English parks. Later, in the 1810s and 20s, the Royal Pavilion at Brighton was given a lavish Chinese interior.

How to recognise chinoiserie

Look for pagodas, bridges and small figures under parasols, flowering branches, birds and bamboo, preferably in asymmetrical scenes. The colours are often blue and white, red and gold or the pastels of the Rococo, and the surfaces lacquered or painted. The most important hallmark is the mixture: Chinese motifs together with European forms, such as a Rococo chest of drawers with Chinese landscapes on the front.

Distinguish between genuine Chinese export ware and European chinoiserie. Chinese objects made for Europe have Chinese craftsmanship and materials, whereas chinoiserie is European in both technique and form. Read more about Rococo furniture in the guide to Rococo furniture and see the word explained in the glossary.

How to recognise it

Pagodas, bridges and figures under parasols
Flowering branches, birds and bamboo in free scenes
Lacquer or European imitation lacquer in red, black and gold
Blue and white after Chinese porcelain
Chinese motifs on European forms, such as a Rococo chest of drawers
Genuine imported objects mixed with imitations

Exercise

What does chinoiserie mean?

Porcelain made in China
European decoration in an imaginative Chinese style
A Chinese lacquer technique