Panel (Furnishing Fabric)

Copperplate printing reached England via Ireland and then found its way to France, where one of the country’s most important printing centers was established at Jouy-en-Josas by Christopher-Philippe Oberkampf in 1760. Jean-Baptiste Huet trained as a painter and was chief designer at the Jouy-en-Josas Manufactory for twenty-eight years. His chinoiserie scene presents a theme that fascinated Europeans, particularly during the eighteenth century. Entire rooms in palaces and hotels were decorated with furniture, porcelain, metal, lacquerwork, and fabrics, all conceived as whimsical, highly westernized versions of Far Eastern forms, designs, and motifs. Many a European garden encompassed a latticed teahouse or pagoda not unlike those pictured here. Panels such as this, with their large-scale repeats, would have been used on chairs and sofas, as well as to cover vast expanses of wall.