The blue and white porcelain exported by China in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is an important category of artifacts and antiques, a fashion-sensitive commodity that was affected by the ebbs and flows of style and consumer demand. In this copiously illustrated, comprehensive guide to Chinese export porcelain, Andrew Madsen offers both a broad overview and detailed identification and context information for the most common styles and motifs. His focus on the determination of manufacture dates, which are based primarily on data collected from armorial decorated export wares, porcelain cargoes from dated shipwrecks, and tightly dated archaeological contexts, will allow students, scholars, and collectors to refine associations with Chinese export porcelain, revealing the untapped quantity of information that mass-produced Chinese export porcelain has to offer.
