Bord, op het plat beschilderd met grondje waarop hek, boom, rotsen, bloemen en twee vogels c. 1755

This is a tin-glazed earthenware plate painted by Henry Delamain. Its decoration, rendered in blue, depicts a whimsical landscape with birds, flora, rocks, and an ornamental fence. Delamain's plate reflects the 18th-century European fascination with Chinoiserie, a style that incorporated imagined elements of Chinese and East Asian design. But it also represents the complex history of global trade and cultural exchange. These types of decorative objects were often produced and consumed within the context of colonial power dynamics. European artists and consumers projected their fantasies and desires onto distant cultures, shaping and distorting the realities of those cultures to suit their own tastes. Consider how this seemingly innocent plate is loaded with a legacy of cultural appropriation and the aestheticization of the "Orient." The visual language flattens and romanticizes what it means to be Asian; it perpetuates stereotypes by reducing a diverse set of cultures to a single aesthetic. This plate is a reminder of the power of art to shape perceptions and reinforce systems of power, and reveals the emotional distance embedded in trade.