'China of the Most Fashionable Sort': Chinese Export Porcelain in Colonial America

Lecture & Workshop at Stenton

Friday, November 13, 2015

10:00 AM to 2:00 PM

Western Cultures long prized Chinese porcelain for its shiny surface, hard, white body, and translucence. Imported Chinese porcelain on display and at table signified Wealth and Status. Because availability of Chinese porcelain wares increased during the 18th Century, Chinese porcelain bodied sherds are one of the largest groups of artifacts recovered from archaeological sites. Stenton's collections of Logan and Norris family ceramics include Porcelain objects that survived both above and below ground. Please Join us at Stenton on Friday, November 13th as Suzanne Findlen Hood, Curator of Ceramics and Glass at Colonial Williamsburg, explores Chinese export Porcelain owned and used in Colonial America. She will highlight ways archaeological evidence brings complexity and nuance to curatorial understandings of Chinese porcelain in the Colonial South, and also suggest ways a decorative arts perspective can broaden the stories archaeology tells. This study day will include a hands-on workshop investigating the Loudoun Collection of Chinese Porcelain as well as mended Logan Family objects excavated at Stenton.

Ticket Required, cost is $50.00, or $45.00 for Friends of Stenton & NSCDA/PA members. Fee includes buffet lunch. Please emailprograms@stenton.org or call 215-329-7312 for information or reservations.

Suzanne Findlen Hood is the Curator of Ceramics and Glass at Colonial Williamsburg. She is co-author with Janine Skerry of Salt-glazed Stoneware in Early America, winner of the American Ceram-ic Circle Book Award for 2009. Her most recent exhibition, ‘China of the Most Fashionable Sort: Chi-nese Export Porcelain in Colonial America,’ is currently on view at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, one of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg.