In a New Exhibition at The Met, Chinoiserie Gets a Feminist Framing
Lisa Wong Macabasco | Vogue | 31st March 2025
When fine Chinese porcelain first arrived in 16th century Europe, its translucence, white colour and blue designs ignited a “Chinoiserie” craze. Europeans saw China as “exotic” and extended this fantasy to Chinese women – “goddesses, mothers, monsters, and performers”. Porcelain also became a metaphor for European womanhood – “fragile, delicate, and sharp when broken”. Porcelain was not culturally neutral as has been assumed. It embodied a “language” about how women were shown.