China for the West: Chinese Porcelain and Other Decorative Arts for Export Illustrated from the Mottahedeh Collection

Over fifty years Mr and Mrs Mottahedeh of New York amassed a huge assembly of Chinese porcelain and other decorative arts for export, which in depth and variety is unprecedented. These two volumes aim to provide the most detailed and penetrating analysis yet made of the porcelains produced for Western markets; examining in its seven hundred pages and as many illustrations (one hundred of them in colour) all their many-sided attractions. The often unusual forms of the porcelains, their decorative styles and traditions, the endlessly varying subjects that they portray – and above all the continuous interchange in such themes between the Chinese manufacturers and decorators and their distant clients in the West, by means of the historic trading companies – all these are studied and interpreted more fully, and tabulated more practically for reference than ever before. With its superb illustrations and analytical, yet highly readable text, these books offer an indispensable new source of information for the student and the collector.