Four Centuries of Blue and White: The Frelinghuysen Collection of Chinese and Japanese Export Porcelain

The first major publication to present Chinese and Japanese blue and white porcelain together, from the Frelinghuysen collection.

This beautifully illustrated book presents the Frelinghuysen collection of Chinese and Japanese export porcelain. It is the first major publication to consider Chinese and Japanese blue and white together.

This extraordinary collection, assembled carefully over fifty years, features an exceptionally wide array of Asian blue and white porcelain--the most ubiquitous and influential of all ceramics. Ranging from Chinese pieces specially made for Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century to late nineteenth-century commissions for the Thai royal court, the collection also includes numerous Chinese classics from the era of the European trading companies and a notable selection of Japanese export porcelain. In its vast scope, it speaks of the diverse impulses and historical forces that propelled the trade in Asian porcelain and provides a lens to view the interaction of East and West from the early modern age to the dawn of the twentieth century.

More than 300 pieces from the collection are illustrated and discussed in full and another 250 are illustrated in a compendium, all divided into thematic chapters that reflect the many ways Chinese and Japanese porcelain has been traded, collected, and used around the world.

Becky MacGuire is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the Study Centre for the Fine & Decorative Arts at the Victoria & Albert Museum. She was the longtime Asian export art specialist at the international auction house Christie’s.