PRESENTED BYNear East and, by the 16th century, to Europe, earning it the
moniker “Chinese Export” ware. Europeans quickly developed a
mania for the pieces, and during the first half of the 17th century,
around three million pieces of blue-and-white Chinese Export
were imported into Europe. To accommodate this burgeoning
clientele, Chinese porcelain makers sometimes used forms that
were familiar to Westerners, such as salt cellars or mustard pots.
At the same time, blue-and-white porcelain produced in Japan
was also earning many European admirers.
Despite its eye-watering prices, blue-and-white porcelain
continued to enthrall the West, leading to a European-wide race
to develop domestic porcelain-manufacturing operations that
could imitate Chinese examples. First up were the Dutch, whose
attempts at reproducing blue-and-white porcelain resulted in