"After the Chinese Taste": Chinese Export Porcelain and Chinoiserie Design in Eighteen-Century CharlestonAuthor(s): Robert A. LeathSource: Historical Archaeology, Vol. 33, No. 3, Charleston in the Context of Trans-AtlanticCulture (1999), pp. 48-61Published by: Society for Historical ArchaeologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25616724 .Accessed: 17/08/2011 20:33

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48

ROBERT A. LEATH

"After the Chinese Taste": Chinese Export Porcelain and Chinoiserie Design in Eighteen Century Charleston

ABSTRACT

Chinese export porcelain is one of the most commonly found ceramics in the Charleston area, constituting as much as 24%

of the overall ceramic assemblage at many archaeological sites.

Chinese porcelain was but one part, however, of a broader

stylistic language known as Chinoiserie in the 18th century. As

international trade expanded, the complete range of Asian export

luxury goods?Chinese silks, Indian cotton textiles, Chinese

lacquer and hardwood furniture, Chinese wallpaper, and reverse

paintings on glass?became popular throughout the European world. The European enthusiasm for Asian export goods inspired western designers both technologically?with the invention of

porcelain?and stylistically, as they combined Asian and Eu

ropean motifs in whimsical, Chinese-inspired designs for architecture and interior decoration. The more ephemeral objects, such as textiles and wallpaper, rarely survive in the archaeo

logical record, although their presence can be established in

period newspaper advertisements and probate inventories. As one of the wealthiest cities and most active trading centers in

18th-century North America, Charleston, South Carolina, pro vides rich documentation for the presence of Asian export luxury

goods and Chinese-inspired designs in the American colonies.

By importing these goods and ordering locally crafted objects in the Chinese taste, Charleston's colonial gentry demonstrated

their ability to emulate their European counterparts and adapt the latest European fashion to their own domestic interiors.

Introduction

In 1756, the British poet James Cawthorn de scribed the vogue for Chinese-inspired art and architecture in 18th-century Europe in his poem entitled On Taste. Cawthorn (1756) wrote:

Of late, 'tis true, quite sick of Rome and Greece

We fetch our models from the wise Chinese

European artists are too cool and chaste

For Mand'rin is the only man of taste. . . .

Whose bolder genius fondly wild to see

His grove of forests and his pond a sea, Breaks out?and whimsically great designs Without the shackles of rules or lines.

Form'd on his plans our farms and seats begin To match the boasted Villas of Pekin

On ev'ry hill a spire-crowned temple swells

Hung round with serpents and a fringe of bells. . . .

On ev'ry shelf a Joss divinely stares

Nymphs laid on chintzes sprawl upon our chairs

While o'er our cabinets Confucius nods

Midst porcelain elephants and China gods.

Cawthorn's poem describes the fashion for Asian export luxury goods that began in the late 16th century as a primarily aristocratic taste and,

eventually, filtered down to the lesser gentry and the middle class (Jourdain and Jenyns 1967:11

15; Jackson-Stops 1985:432). As international trade expanded, the European East India compa nies filled the western market with Asian goods, making them more readily available and afford able to modest consumers. By 1700, the fashion for entire rooms decorated with Chinese export porcelain and Chinese lacquer paneling, previ ously reserved for monarchs and nobility, became

popularized through the published designs of the French-born court designer Daniel Marot (Jarry 1981:62-66; Cocks 1989:195-196)(Figure 1).

Gradually, the presence of Asian goods in Euro

pean interiors became commonplace and inspired European designs for objects in the whimsical Chinese style, known as Chinoiserie. This style reached its apex during the mid-18th century through the published works of European design ers such as Jean Pillement, Thomas Chippendale,

William and John Halfpenny, Sir William Cham

bers, and others, and the Chinoiserie style be came broadly disseminated throughout the west ern world (Jackson-Stops 1985:435-436).

To what extent, however, did the appetite for

Asian export goods and Chinese-inspired art and architecture impact the American colonies? To

what degree did colonial consumers attempt to

emulate their European counterparts by adopting the new-fangled Chinese style? This paper an

swers these questions by examining the evidence for Chinoiserie decoration in Charleston, South

Carolina, from approximately 1725 to 1775, at

Historical Archaeology, 1999, 33(3):48-61. Permission to reprint required.

"AFTER THE CHINESE TASTE": CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN AND CHINOISERIE DESIGN 49

FIGURE 1. Design by Daniel Marot for a room decorated with Chinese export porcelain, ca. 1690.

the height of the European Chinoiserie vogue. During this 50-year period, Charleston was in its

golden age as an economic boom town. Its

population nearly tripled, growing from 4,500 to over 12,000 and making it the largest city in the South. Charleston's elite, comprised of wealthy merchants and planters, professionals and high ranking government officials, enjoyed the highest per free capita income of the mainland North American colonies (Jones 1980; Coclanis 1989). Through the vast wealth created by rice and in

digo, the slave trade, and commercial shipping, 18th-century Charlestonians constituted a unique class of newly rich Americans who were open to outside influences and boldly acquisitive in their

adoption of the latest European designs. By the mid-18th century, Charlestonians considered themselves a stylish "suburb" of London, so

much so that South Carolina Governor John

Drayton later wrote, they "sought in every pos sible way to emulate the life of London society" and "were too much enamoured of British cus

toms, manners and education to imagine that elsewhere anything of advantage could be ob tained" (Drayton 1821:217).

Asian Export Goods in the Charleston Marketplace

By the mid 18th century, Charleston imported an impressive array of Asian export luxury goods that included not only Chinese porcelain, but also

textiles, lacquer and hardwood furniture, paint ings, reverse paintings on glass, and scenic wall

papers. Behind the city's wharves on the Coo

per River stood the fashionable retail district

along Broad, Elliott, and Tradd streets, where merchants and shopkeepers hawked a wide as

50 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 33(3)

sortment of merchandise just imported from En

gland. The 1756 inventory of shop goods be

longing to merchant Samuel Perroneau, for ex

ample, included Asian teas and spices, a variety of Chinese porcelains, and several expensive Asian textiles. A customer entering Perroneau's

shop could select among 32 pint-sized china bowls priced at 5s. each, or 2 dozen tea cups and saucers at 50s. per dozen. His stock of

clothing included silk shoes, umbrellas, and ex

pensive jewelry. His inventory of textiles in cluded Chinese silks as well as colorfully hand

painted cotton textiles from India. Perroneau's customers could choose among "1 piece Black China Taffaty" priced at ?20 or "5 pieces Coarse India Chints" at ?9 10s. The "2 whole and 2 half pieces Mock Chints" in Perroneau's inven

tory, priced at only ?2 10s., referred to cheaper English-made textiles in the Chinese taste (CCPC 1756). Perroneau's inventory suggests the vari

ety of options made available to Charleston's colonial consumers through the trans-Atlantic connections of the city's mercantile community.

Porcelain

The 18th-century writer Daniel Defoe attributed the British taste for decorating rooms with orna

mental displays of Chinese porcelain to Queen Mary II after her marriage to Prince William of

Orange. According to Defoe, it was Mary who then "brought in the Custom or Humour, as I

may call it, of furnishing Houses with China

ware, which spread to lesser mortals and in creased to a strange degree afterwards, piling their China upon the tops of cabinets, scrutores and every chimneypiece, to the tops of the ceil

ings and even setting up shelves for their China ware" (Cocks 1989:196). Interestingly, the ear liest reference to the ornamental use of porcelain in South Carolina occurred during Queen Mary's reign, in the 1686 inventory of losses suffered by the merchant Paul Grimball after a Spanish and Indian attack. Grimball's house contained a room ornamented in the style of Daniel Marot with alabaster images and "Toyes of chainy

[sic]" valued at the sum of ?9 (Baldwin 1969:24). By the 1730s, porcelain had become

fairly commonplace in South Carolina. The Charleston merchant Robert Pringle wrote regu larly to his fellow merchants in London, Hull, Boston, Newport, Antigua, and Barbados, seeking ready supplies for porcelain he could sell to his Charleston customers, "China Ware . . .

being

very Scarce & in great Demand here" (Edgar 1972:776-788). By the 1740s, porcelain appeared regularly among merchandise advertised in the South Carolina Gazette, such as David Crawford's notice for his store on Broad Street: "JUST IMPORTED ... a large assortment of China ware as breakfast cups and saucers, dishes, plates and bowls of all sorts, tea and coffee cups and saucers, also 3 compleat sets of color'd china for a tea table" (SCG 1749).

Today, Chinese export porcelain is one of the most commonly found ceramics in the Charleston area, and constitutes as much as 24% of the overall ceramic assemblage at many archaeologi cal sites (Herold 1978; Lewis 1978; Zierden et al. 1987; Zierden and Grimes 1989; Zierden and Calhoun 1990; Zierden 1990, 1996; Trinkley et al. 1995). While the majority of sherds repre sent the relatively inexpensive, blue-and-white dinner wares and tea wares one might expect to find at a colonial site, surprising quantities of

more expensive porcelains also have been uncov

ered. These include a significant number of

Imari-type wares and brown-glazed, also known as Batavia, wares. The most expensive porcelains in the 18th century, however, were those that featured elaborate polychrome enamel scenes

painted in China specially for the European mar ket. The archaeological excavations at Drayton Hall, for example, demonstrate the extent to which owning expensive overglaze enameled wares became de rigeur among Charleston's

18th-century elite, as overglaze enameled sherds outnumbered blue-and-white sherds by a 2:1 ra tio (Lewis 1978:198-204).

In addition to dinner wares and tea wares,

18th-century Charlestonians imitated the European gentry by using porcelain to ornament their inte

riors, massing it atop furniture, doorways, and

chimney pieces in a decorative display designed

"AFTER THE CHINESE TASTE": CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN AND CHINOISERIE DESIGN 51

Mr

^ ^^^^

* \ * t i

R'.,.*PV. I

K * x,? ,

FIGURE 2. Chinese porcelain figure of Guanyin, mid-18th century. (Photo by Terry Richardson; Miles Brewton House collection.)

to impress both friends and visitors. Today, these ornamental porcelain items are

underrepresented in the archaeological record and survive most frequently in museum and private collections because they were expensive and

highly valued. South Carolina's royal governor Arthur Middleton exhibited "a parcell of China on the scrutoire" at his Goose Creek plantation (CCPC 1738). Even more elaborately, the mer chant William Hopton displayed "1 Double Chest of Drawers with China Jars, etc." in a bed cham ber and "1 India Cabinet with 2 sets China Jars" in the parlor of his Meeting Street town house

(CCPC 1786). Similarly, the inventory of Charleston merchant William Bampfield lists "1 sett China Jarrs," and numerous other

Lowcountry inventories mention Chinese porce lain "images" or "toys" and "ornamental china over the chimney" (CCPC 1751, 1774, 1781,

1793). The colonial chief justice Charles Shinner exhibited an entire "Toyshelf with Chinese fig ures on it" at his Charleston residence (CCPC 1768b). Period newspaper advertisements illus trate the availability of these ornamental wares. In 1763, for example, the merchant firm of

Hetherington and Kynock offered "a GREAT

variety of China, and china Images" among their "assortment of European and East-India goods" recently imported from London (SCG 1763). Archaeology at Drayton Hall has uncovered only one small Chinese porcelain hand and leaf from "china Images" like those advertised, while the

Miles Brewton House collection retains an intact

18th-century Dehua porcelain figure of Guanyin, the Chinese goddess of mercy (Lewis 1978:198

199)(Figure 2). The private and museum collections of Chinese

porcelain in Charleston provide contextual signifi cance for archaeologically retrieved ceramics. The Charleston Museum collection includes, for

example, a tea cup and saucer, ca 1750, with

polychrome enamel scenes on semi-eggshell por celain depicting a Chinese woman in a domestic interior. According to family tradition, it be

longed originally to the 18th-century Charleston matron Eliza Lucas Pinckney (Figure 3). The

52 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 33(3)

FIGURE 3. Chinese export porcelain cup and saucer, ca.

1750. (Courtesy The Charleston Museum.)

Charleston Museum's collection also includes a

nearly complete porcelain dinner service with rose palette enamel decoration in the pseudo-to bacco leaf pattern, ca. 1770, which descended in the Ravenel family of Charleston and Wantoot

plantation (Figure 4). Typical of the large dinner services advertised in period newspapers, the Ravenel service retains more than 40 dinner

plates, 20 soup plates, 12 dessert plates, a large soup tureen with cover and stand, a sauce tureen with cover and stand, 2 sauceboats with

underplates, a salad bowl, and 11 platters in 5

graduated sizes?indicating the full size and

scope of an 18th-century porcelain dinner service

required for fashionable entertaining. With more than 120 pieces surviving, the Ravenel service is the largest extant Chinese export porcelain dinner service with a colonial American history.

The 1774 inventory of lawyer and planter Pe ter Manigault provides a mark for the range of

porcelains a wealthy colonial consumer might aspire to own. At the time of his death,

Manigault owned 3 plantations with more than 275 slaves and a 3-story, 12-room wooden town house on East Bay. For his principal plantation at Goose Creek, his inventory lists simply "10 China Bowls some cracked, 6 China Dishes & 7

Plates, [and] 1 Lot of Tea China" (CCPC 1774). For his town house, however, Manigault owned

3 blue-and-white dinner services, 6 tea services

(3 blue-and-white and 3 overglaze enameled), 15

punch bowls, 8 wash basins, 7 enameled mugs, and 3 ornamental china flower pots, for a total of more than 620 pieces of porcelain with a com bined value of more than ?250 sterling (CCPC 1774). Manigault's inventory reflects the pri

macy placed by colonial Charlestonians on their more sociable town residences as well as the vast number of wares required to maintain a stylish, 18th-century Charleston household.

Textiles

Imported Chinese silks and Indian cotton tex tiles were the most highly valued fabrics of the 18th century, and period newspaper advertise

ments document their ready availability in Charleston by the 1740s. William Hopton and Thomas Smith, for example, offered "callicoes, chintz" and "a great variety of English and India silks" at their store on Broad Street (SCG 1742).

FIGURE 4. Chinese export porcelain plate, ca. 1770.

(Courtesy The Charleston Museum.)

"AFTER THE CHINESE TASTE": CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN AND CHINOISERIE DESIGN 53

FIGURE 5. Chinese export desk and bookcase, made of

rosewood with reverse paintings on glass, ca. 1770.

In 1772, the vestry of St. Michael's Church or

dered a set of "Crimson Indian Damask Curtains" for the organ gallery "to run upon Brass Rods &

Rings Lacquered ... a Gold Fringe Border, and double Gilt Pine Apple Tops at each end" (Wil liams 1951:173-174). Eighteenth-century Charles tonians frequently used these expensive Asian

textiles to upholster their domestic interiors. The

inventory of Sarah Trott, for example, listed "1 Sett India Callico Curtains" in her bed chamber

(CCPC 1745). Likewise, the inventory of Mary Branford Bull included "a Compleat sett of fine India Chintz Furniture for a Bed and Windows and Covers for Chairs" (CCPC 1772). The most

important mention of Asian export textiles in

18th-century Charleston, however, is the sale of

furnishings belonging to Sir Egerton Leigh, South Carolina's last royal attorney general who fled the colony before the American Revolution. His

goods at auction included "several suits of hand some Chintz Cotton Window Curtains lined and

ornamented with Silk Fringe and Tassels" and "a

complete set of Chintz Cotton Bed Curtains."

Furthermore, the sale offered "elegant white and

gold Cabriole Sophas and chairs, covered with

blue and white silk, window curtains to match," and "one other set of Sophas and chairs, covered with black and yellow figures of Nun's work in Silk" (SCG 1774). The term "Nun's work" sug

gests colorfully hand-embroidered Chinese silk, an extremely expensive fabric occasionally used

by the English elite as an upholstery textile. The

presence of such costly goods among Sir Egerton Leigh's belongings suggests the existence of a

stylish London town house interior in 18th-cen

tury Charleston.

Furniture

Similarly, Charlestonians owned a surprising amount of Chinese export furniture, rare com

modities usually associated with the European aristocracy and wealthy China trade merchants. The Chinese cabinetmakers working at Canton

specialized in crafting European-style furniture, such as tea tables, chests, desk and bookcases, chairs, screens, and cabinets, made from either

highly ornamented black-and-gold lacquer or ex

otic Asian hardwoods, such as ebony and rose

wood, not found in Europe (Jourdain and Jenyns 1967:16-24; Jarry 1981:127-134; Crossman

1991:220-288). Charleston inventories are replete with references to lacquer or "japanned" furniture

54 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 33(3)

(CCPC 1732, 1746, 1748a, 1760, 1767, 1781, 1786). The inventories of merchant Abraham Satur and attorney general Peter Leigh, for ex

ample, both mention "1 India Tea Table" (CCPC 1748a, 1759). Peter Leigh's inventory further lists "1 large 6 leaved Japan screen" and "1 four leaved India screen," referring to lacquer folding screens made in either Japan or China. The

European East India companies had imported this form since the early 17th century (Impey 1989:182-188). Sir Egerton Leigh of Charleston owned a "curious and superb India Cabinet," a Chinese-made cabinet decorated with black-and

gold lacquer used to store and display important valuables and curiosities. "India" cabinets are included in nearly a half dozen elite-level Charleston inventories (CCPC 1746, 1748b, 1767, 1781, 1786). More impressively, Sir Egerton

Leigh owned "a Rose Wood Desk and Book Case with Chinese Paintings on Glass very mas

terly executed," referring to a Chinese-made, European-style desk and bookcase made of rose wood with glazed doors featuring Chinese reverse

paintings on glass (Figure 5). This is the only known reference to Chinese export hardwood furniture in colonial North America (SCG 1774).

Wallpaper and Paintings

References to Chinese wallpaper and paintings also appear frequently in 18th-century Charleston documents. In 1744, the merchant Robert

Pringle ordered from London a set of "India Pictures . . . about a foot square in frames

glazed," referring to small sections of hand

painted Chinese wallpaper which he thought might appeal to his Charleston customers (Edgar 1972[2]:688, 723). Known as "India pictures," these wallpaper sections depicted scenes of Chi nese peasant life, or Chinese landscapes with flora and fauna that certainly must have seemed exotic to western viewers. The 1751 inventory of Elinor Sandwell lists exactly such wares with "6 Pictures of East India Settlements in colours Framed & Glassed" valued at ?20 (CCPC 1751). Similarly, Dr. William Pillans owned "20 Chinese

FIGURE 6. From Thomas Chippendale (1754:Plate 46).

Views in Frames" priced at ?10 (CCPC 1768a). In 1791, the merchant Alexander Inglis exhibited "4 Chinese Paintings ... In the Hall" of his Charleston town residence (CCPC 1791). Other

options included using the wallpaper sections as insets for fire screens, as illustrated in plates 46 and 47 of Thomas Chippendale's (1754) The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker's Director (Figure 6), or pasting them to the wall against a plain wallpaper background as part of a whimsical

wallpaper scheme (Jourdain and Jenyns 1967:30

31). In 1756, the Charleston upholsterer Thomas

Booden, who had apprenticed with the Royal Company of Upholders in London, advertised

exactly such a treatment: "LATELY imported from London . . . India pictures ... fit for or

namenting walls" (SCG 1756b). Later, Booden and fellow London-trained Charleston upholsterer John Blott advertised "several sets of fine mock India paper ... for the hanging of rooms, ceil

ings, stair cases, &c." and "Mock India Pictures, Flower Pot Pieces, &c." referring to less expen sive English-made paper printed in the Chinese

style (SCG 1756c, 1770). The demand for au thentic hand-painted Chinese wallpaper had out

stripped the ability of European East India com

panies to supply the market and gave rise to

European manufacturers of a cheaper block

printed alternative.

"AFTER THE CHINESE TASTE": CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN AND CHINOISERIE DESIGN 55

Charleston-made Objects in the Chinese Taste

As the influence of the Chinoiserie style on

western design increased, local artisans responded by learning to produce objects in the new Chi nese taste. The Charleston cabinetmaker Peter

Hall, for example, informed his customers that at

his store on the Bay "gentlemen and ladies of taste may have made, and be supplied with, Chi nese tables of all sorts, shelves, trays, chimney pieces, brackets, etc., being at present the most

elegant and admired fashion in London" (SCG 1761). Similarly, the account book kept by

Charleston's famous cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe

demonstrates how his shop began to produce chairs, tea tables, brackets, and bookcases in the new Chinese style. From 1768 to 1775, approxi mately half of the desk and bookcases and one

third of the tea tables produced by Elfe's shop featured elements identified as "Chinese." In

1774, Elfe made a "China frett tea Table" (Fig ure 7) for John Duetart and "A Mahogany Desk & Book Case [with] Chineas Dores" for Francis

Young (Webber 1934-1941). The English writer John Shebbeare satirized that by the 1750s "so

excessive is the love of Chinese architecture be

come, that at present the foxhunters would be

sorry to break a leg in pursuing their sport over a gate that was not made in the Eastern fashion of little bits of wood standing in all directions"

FIGURE 7. Detail of the Chinese-style fretwork on a Charles

ton-made pembroke table, ca. 1770. (Courtesy The Charles

ton Museum.)

(Honour 1961:130). Charleston's London-trained artisans often provided the impetus for this de

sign change. Shortly after his arrival in Charles

ton, for example, the London-trained carver John Lord boasted of his skill carving "in the house and furniture way . . . pier glasses of all kinds,

chimney glasses, gerandoles, picture frames, con

sole brackets, [ionic] corinthian and composite capitals, trusses, mouldings of various different

patterns, with every kind of ornament proper for

decorating the inside of rooms, in the French, Chinese and Gothic tastes" (Bivins 1986; SCG

1768). In 1756, the Charleston merchant James Reid

advertised for sale an entire house built "after the CHINESE taste." "The said house," Reid noted, "is new built, strong, and modish, after the CHI NESE taste, which spreads 60 feet square includ

ing the balconies" (SCG 1756a). Reid's adver tisement points to the amazing rapidity with which 18th-century Charlestonians assumed the latest architectural trend. Unlike their 19th-century descendants who were more conservative in their taste and relied almost exclusively on familiar

forms, Charleston's 18th-century aristocrats vora

ciously consumed the latest architectural styles emanating from London. Reid's advertisement

appeared only four years after the publication of Britain's first pattern book for Chinoiserie-style domestic architecture, Chinese and Gothic Archi tecture Properly Ornamented (Halfpenny and

Halfpenny 1752) (Figure 8). The Halfpenny brothers' work was followed quickly by other

Chinoiserie-style pattern books, such as Matthias

Darly and George Edwards' (1754) A New Book

of Chinese Designs Calculated to Improve the Present Taste and Sir William Chambers' (1757) Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, etc. By the mid-18th century, pattern books for architecture and furniture in the Chinoiserie style were readily available throughout the Atlantic world (Jackson-Stops 1985:435-436; Jacobson

1993:126-132). In Charleston, Chinese-inspired geometric patterns, known as fretwork, were used

extensively to ornament architecture and survive in situ on overmantels in the second floor prin

56 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 33(3)

ji U .Mil /W#**> ,. . /Shwi

FIGURE 8. From William Halfpenny and John Halfpenny (1752:Plate 2).

cipal rooms of numerous 18th-century Charleston houses (Savage and Iseley 1995:98)(Figure 9).

The Chinoiserie Context

To the 18th-century mind, Asian export luxury goods, such as porcelains and upholstery textiles, were intended to blend with Chinese-inspired patterns in architecture to create a single, repeti tious allusion to the Chinese taste. Perhaps the

greatest opportunity to study this overall impact of the Chinese taste on Charleston's 18th-century buildings and interiors has been the recent resto ration of the Miles Brewton House. Completed in 1769 for one of Charleston's richest pre-Revo lutionary era merchants, the Miles Brewton

House is often considered the finest examples of

Georgian Palladian town house architecture in America (Figure 10). Four years after its

completion, Bostonian Josiah Quincy recorded

that the house was rumored to have cost more

than ?8000 sterling. Quincy provided an evoca tive description of its second floor principal room: "the grandest hall I ever beheld, azure

blue satin window curtains, rich blue paper with

gilt mashee borders, most elegant pictures, exces

sive grand and costly looking glasses, etc."

(Quincy 1916:424)(Figure 11). Like an English country estate, the house has descended for eight generations in the same family, primarily through the female line through the Brewton, Motte,

Pringle, Frost, and Manigault families, and retains a collection of Chinese export porcelain with

family provenance that is unmatched in America.

i

~~~

FIGURE 9. Detail of the Chinese-style f retork on the second floor principal room overmantel in the Heyward-Washington House, 1772. (Courtesy The Charleston Museum.)

"AFTER THE CHINESE TASTE": CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN AND CHINOISERIE DESIGN 57

3 i^H 1 rt i^H I Iff I

FIGURE 10. The Miles Brewton House, 1772.

The collection includes a blue-and-white charger, ca. 1750 (Figure 12), that originally belonged to

Jacob Motte, the public treasurer of South Caro lina from 1743 to 1770, and a set of three over

glaze enameled mugs, circa 1760 (Figure 13), that conjure the reference to "7 Enameled China

Mugs" in Peter Manigault's 1774 inventory (CCPC 1774). Despite the Miles Brewton House's reputation

as a preeminent example of 18th-century Ameri can classicism, it is interesting to observe how the carver, Ezra Waite, combined classical orna

ment with Chinese- and Gothic-style fretwork

throughout the house. On the exterior cornice, elaborate Chinese-style fretwork wraps around the house and above the ionic columns of the por

tico. Waite filled the most ornate rooms of the interior with both Chinese- and Gothic-style mo

tifs. The second floor principal room, for ex

ample, with carving that has been attributed to

both Waite and the London-trained craftsman John Lord, features Gothic-style fretwork in the

ceiling and Chinese-style ho-ho birds emerging from Chinese-style rockery in the upper corners

of the overmantel (Bivins 1986)(Figure 14). The

mixture of design motifs by colonial patrons and artisans reflects the colonial American desire to

have it all in their architecture. In European houses, Chinoiserie design was an exotic expres sion reserved generally for "rooms of pleasure," such as bed chambers and dressing rooms, while

classical ornament remained the standard for ex

teriors and public spaces (Jackson-Stops 1985:432; Cocks 1989:204; Jacobson 1993:136

138). In the smaller, less stratified houses of colonial America, however, Chinoiserie decoration moved directly into the most public rooms, as

colonial homeowners made fewer distinctions between public and private space. Colonial con sumers sought to demonstrate their wealth in a

more visible way. While in Europe Chinoiserie decoration coexisted with the Palladian, the

Gothic, and the Rococo styles, each within its own sphere, in America they converged to form

FIGURE 11. Second floor principal room of the Miles Brewton House.

58 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 33(3)

FIGURE 12. Blue and white porcelain charger, ca. 1750.

(Photo by Terry Richardson, Miles Brewton House collec

tion.)

a bolder style of decoration that English cognoscenti might have considered gauche or

perhaps slightly schizophrenic.

Conclusion

Through their European travels, elite Charlesto nians became personally familiar with the aristo cratic taste for collecting Chinese export porcelain and displaying it with an assortment of other Asian export luxury goods. Shortly after their arrival in England in 1753, the Pinckneys of Charleston were received at Kew Palace by the Princess of Wales. In a letter to a Charleston

friend, Mrs. Pinckney described the process of her family wearing their finest clothes and trav

eling in their carriage to the palace, being met by a servant and escorted through the Princess's enfilade of rooms into her dressing room for a

private audience. Mrs. Pinckney paid close at tention to the decoration of the Princess's apart

ment and wrote, "there was in the room a great deal of China upon two Cabinets; the Princess

got up herself and reached one of the figures to

please Harriott, and another time desired the Princess Augusta to get one which was out of her reach, so she got a chair and stood on it to reach it. . . .This, you'll imagine must seem

pretty extraordinary to an American" (Ravenel 1896:148-149). As the Pinckneys left the palace they would have viewed the gardens which were then being transformed by the architect and de

signer Sir William Chambers from the old, for

mal, geometric style of the 17th century into the new naturalistic style which featured Chinese-, Gothic-, and classically-inspired follies placed amid picturesque landscape settings. The gardens at Kew already included a pagoda-shaped temple, known as the House of Confucius, designed by Joseph Goupy in the 1740s (Honour 1961:150

156). After her return to South Carolina, Mrs.

Pinckney reported to her English friends that she now found her Charleston garden "laid out in the old taste" and was hard at work "modernizing" it

(Pinckney 1997:185). Charleston's 18th-century aristocrats exemplify

what we today might call "trickle down" decora tive arts, the process of colonials emulating the fashion trends that start at the top of society in their mother country. Through their travels,

mercantile connections, and exposure to popular designs in pattern books, they understood that to be stylish in the mid-18th century required an

FIGURE 13. Set of three overglaze enameled Chinese export porcelain mugs, ca. 1760. (Photo by Terry Richardson, Miles Brewton House collection.)

"AFTER THE CHINESE TASTE": CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN AND CHINOISERIE DESIGN 59

FIGURE 14. Detail of carving on the overmantel of the second floor principal room of the Miles Brewton House.

impressive display of Asian export luxury goods combined with locally made objects in the Chi nese taste. They followed the dictum of Eliza beth Wortley Montagu, the leader of London's

18th-century clique of fashionables known as the

bluestockings, who wrote, "we must all seek the barbarous gaudy [taste] of the Chinese; and shak

ing mandarins, bear the prize from the finest works of antiquity; and Apollo and Venus must

give way to a fat idol with a sconce on his head" (Jacobson 1993:123). By pursuing the Chinese taste, Charleston's colonial elite sought to demonstrate that they had risen beyond their

early colonial roots to achieve the status of so

phisticated, cosmopolitan consumers of the 18th

century. Historical archaeology provides power ful evidence for much of this design impulse; period documents and surviving objects help complete the overall picture where archaeological fragments do not survive.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank Martha Zierden, Bernard

Herman, and Chris Loeblein for their scholarly assistance with this article. Special thanks are due Mr.

and Mrs. Peter Manigault for sharing their extensive

collection of Chinese export porcelain at the Miles Brewton House and making it available for publication and study.

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