Vase

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, blue-and-white ware became a key medium for transmitting artistic symbols, motifs, and designs across the world, creating a shared global aesthetic in ceramic production. Exchange between China and the Middle East sparked a market for blue-and-white ware. As early as the tenth century, potters in Jingdezhen, China, began producing qingbai (bluish-white porcelain) for trade with the Middle East. Potters in Iran experimented with painting cobalt designs on porcelain, in addition to creating their own blue-and-white lusterware. This in turn prompted Chinese artisans to begin decorating their works. 

During the thirteenth century, lusterware and blue-and-white ware were introduced to Italy via Islamic Spain and Turkey. Soon after, colorful tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica) was produced throughout Italy and traded across Europe, priming the market for blue-and-white by the seventeenth century. In 1603, the Dutch East India Trading Company became the dominant European power in the Far East, instrumental in transporting Chinese blue-and-white to Europe. As the ceramic market in Europe expanded, artisans across Europe––Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands––emulated Chinese blue-and-white. Unable to replicate porcelain, the Dutch created their own tin-glazed earthenware, known as Delftware, which offered a secondary market for European consumers and undermined China’s monopoly in the ceramics trade. 

Production of blue-and-white from China to Colonial Mexico is the result of an intense era of cross-cultural connection, when artisans across the globe drew inspiration from one another, imitating color, form, and motif to cater to emerging regional and global markets for porcelain.