guide buttonback button
Although Continental and domestic Chinoiserie wares were available in England earlier in the seventeenth century, the style’s widespread popularity began in the 1680s. The items most emblematic of this craze are tin-glazed earthenware plates that feature a central figure sitting along a rocky streambed whose image is repeated twice around the rim. This "Chinese Figure" pattern was based on Chinese wares made between the Ming and Qing dynasties. Copies made in Japan for the western market were imitated in the Dutch pottery center of Delft and then in England. Archaeological evidence reveals the immense popularity of the "Chinese Figure" pattern not only in English homes but also in most of the major English settlements in America and the Caribbean.