Chinese Occidenterie: The Diversity of “Western” Objects in Eighteenth-Century China

The eighteenth-century Chinese taste for European things was met less by importing foreign goods than by domestically producing occidentalizing works of art, a diverse category of objects that can be termed “occidenterie.” This essay redirects the previous consideration of occidenterie from the Jesuit mission and imperial court painting toward a diversity of examples that span geography, material, format, and social class. The various ways in which Chinese occidenterie produced in different places and for different audiences employed elements connoting the West, thereby acquiring their foreign or exoticizing auras, more accurately reflects the empire-wide complexity of this phenomenon.