Porcelain in Dresden.(influences of Far Eastern porcelain on European culture)

In-the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the whole of Europe was fascinated by chinoiseric (Chinsercy in German). It was more than just a fashion; it was almost a way of life. The trend began around 1650, helped by the expanding Dutch and Portuguese trade with China and Japan. The many stories traders and missionaries brought back from the Far East led Europeans to believe that it must be a land of dreams, utterly different from they own After the Thirty Years' War and the chaos it left behind people longed for peace and quiet. In the European imagination China, mysterious and largely unknown, became an earthly paradise. Travelers tales and their pictures as well as the ...