The taste for Chinese wallpaper in the British Isles during the long eighteenth century

The taste for Chinese luxury goods became firmly established in Britain in the late seventeenth century. Products like porcelain and silk were appreciated not just for their material glamour and visual sophistication, but also through their association with the longevity and stability of Chinese civilisation. By 1750 the British taste for Chinese pictures to use as wall decoration prompted Chinese artisans to begin to produce pictorial wallpaper for the western market.

This talk will chart the development of the different types of Chinese export wallpaper during the second half of the 18th century, using examples from the historic houses in the care of the National Trust and from elsewhere. Emile de Bruijn will show how the Chinese producers used traditional motifs, materials and techniques while at the same time responding to European tastes. He will place Chinese wallpapers in the wider context of what we might now call ‘orientalism’, the creation and perpetuation of a hybrid decorative style fusing Asian and European elements.

Emile de Bruijn works as an assistant curator for the National Trust, focusing on western decorative art and East Asian art. He published the monograph Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland in 2017 and he is currently working on a book about the impact of China and Japan on the houses and gardens of the National Trust.