Le goût pour les porcelaines de Chine et du Japon à Paris aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle

Based on previously unseen archives, this book tells the commercial tours and the evolution of the taste and uses of porcelain from China and Japan in the XVII^th and the XVIII^th century in Paris. The subject has never been studied in France. The contemporaries favoured the effect of the set and not the individual quality of each piece. At the table japanese porcelains were used to serve the dessert, high point of the meal. From the end of the XVII^th century, the importation diversified and the new generations and rejected the accumulation of the blues and whites. They prefered the polychromatic pieces and the celadons presented in a smaller number in the appartments. The amateurs combined them with their collection of paintings and bronzes; they appreciated the contrast of the materials. The development of the settings in golden bronze transformed the assembled oriental porcelains in real objects of art. They played an important role in the interior decor’s history. Chinese and japanese porcelains are an essential element in the history of the european taste and decorative arts in the XVII^th and the XVIII^th centuries.