Buckingham China: The Display of Chinese Porcelain in British Palaces

Abstract

This talk analyzes the framing and display of Chinese porcelain in three royal residences in England – Carlton House, Brighton Pavilion, and Buckingham Palace – stretching from 1783 to 1873. Using visual evidence from prints, watercolors, and period photographs (many unpublished), it shows how porcelain objects were integrated into various interior designs, paying particular attention to the mixing of Chinese, Indian, and French decorative arts, the shift from 18th-century Chinoiserie modes of display to more modern 19th-century modes, and the central role these objects continue to play in the visual rhetoric of British royal power. By tracing this history of royal collecting, the paper suggests that Chinoiserie and Chinese porcelain generally complemented rather than opposed the Neoclassicism that once dominated the visual culture of British royal identity.