works from George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton to the more accessible Buckingham Palace. Chinoiserie served to remind Britain of its former colonial glory that was rapidly fading with the modern era. Chinese porcelain From the Renaissance to the 18th century Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese export porcelain (and for that matter Japanese export porcelain – Europeans were generally vague as the origin of "oriental" imports), with only partial success. One of the earliest successful attempts, for instance, was the Medici porcelain manufactured in Florence during the late-16th century, as the Casino of San Marco remained open from 1575–1587. Despite never being commercial in nature, the next major attempt to replicate Chinese porcelain was the soft-paste manufactory at Rouen in 1673, with Edme Poterat, widely reputed as creator of the French soft-paste pottery tradition, opening his own factory in 1647. Efforts were eventually made to imitate hard-paste porcelain, which were held in high regard. As such, the direct imitation of Chinese designs in faience began in the late 17th century, was carried into European porcelain production, most naturally in tea wares, and peaked in the wave of rococo chinoiserie (c. 1740–1770). Earliest hints of chinoiserie appear in the early 17th century, in the arts of the nations with active East India Companies, Holland and England, then by the mid-17th century, in Portugal as well. Tin-glazed pottery (see delftware) made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine blue-and-white Ming decoration from the early 17th century. After a book by Johan Nieuhof was published the 150 pictures encouraged chinoiserie, and became especially popular in the 18th century. Early ceramic wares in Meissen porcelain and other factories naturally imitated Chinese designs, though the shapes for "useful wares", table and tea wares, typically remained Western, often based on shapes in silver. Decorative wares such as vases followed Chinese shapes. Painting The ideas of the decorative and pictorial arts of the East permeated the European and American arts and craft scene. For example, in the United States, "by the mid-18th century, Charleston had imported an impressive array of Asian export luxury goods [such as]...paintings." The aspects of Chinese painting that were integrated into European and American visual arts include asymmetrical compositions, lighthearted subject matter and a general sense of capriciousness. William Alexander (1767–1816), a British painter, illustrator and engraver who travelled to the East Asia and China in the