The influence of Japanese expertise on the British reception of Chinese painting

The encounters between Britain, Japan and China brought about by trade, travel and colonialism from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century significantly aroused the British interest in the collection and historical study of Oriental art. Following the vogue for a Chinese style in the architecture, garden, as well as fine and decorative arts of eighteenth-century Europe, Chinese export painting, ceramics, bronze, jade, lacquer, textile, and all kinds of Chinoiserie objects were imported in large quantities into Britain and sold through the East India Company, auction house, private collectors and art dealers in the nineteenth century. However, Chinese painting, which is the central and most typical Chinese art, remained unexplored in the West.