Cream jug 1765 - 1775

Editor: This delicate porcelain cream jug, made in Liverpool sometime between 1765 and 1775, is just lovely. The hand-painted landscape feels like a world in a snow globe – so small and contained. What is your interpretation of the Chinoiserie scene? Curator: Snow globe is right! It's like a captured dream of the exotic East. This "Asian-art" as you say reflects the period’s fascination with the Orient, filtered through a European lens. See how the artist freely interprets Asian motifs – the stylized building, the fantastical trees. It's less about accuracy and more about conjuring a mood, a longing for something faraway and, frankly, imagined. Don’t you think that such cultural appropriation misses the opportunity for actual intercultural exchange? Editor: It definitely does! Yet, it's charming nevertheless. It looks like the English were enchanted with far east aesthetic elements. Was this sort of thing common at the time? Curator: Absolutely! Porcelain was prized, techniques were closely guarded, and these kinds of decorative scenes were wildly popular. So, artists combined those different traditions – sculpture with drawing, print with ceramics - with their English sensibilities and that craving for the 'exotic'. The market for it was extensive. Think about it - a relatively inexpensive way to have a piece of that Eastern mystique in your own home, and one that could be enjoyed daily! How wonderfully commonplace it is. Editor: It's a strange collision of worlds when you think about it that way. Curator: It is. And it reminds us that every object, even a humble cream jug, tells a story of trade, taste, and cultural exchange – however imperfect that exchange may be. Editor: Well, now I'll think about imagined snow globes of far away lands when I'm pouring cream into my coffee from now on! Curator: Me too. I suspect that art exists precisely there - in unexpected places.