Material Culture and the Other: European Encounters with Chinese Porcelain, ca. 1650-1800

The consumption of Asian luxury goods in early modern Europe has generated a large volume of scholarly research, much of it exploring connections between the exotic object and the identity of the consumer. Links between luxury goods and perceptions of producers in the early modern world remain relatively unexplored. To what extent did European travelers imagine a connection between material culture and Chinese identity or "Chineseness"? Through a close reading of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century travel accounts, this article traces changing European perceptions of material culture and the "other," that is, perceived links between luxury objects and their Chi­nese producers.