Den förtingligade utopin : Ostindiskt porslin på Kina slott; materialitet, dekoration och transkulturalism i svensk rokoko

Sammanfattning: This study analyzes objects of Chinese porcelain found at Kina slott located on Drottningholm just outside Stockholm from a material culture (Material Culture Studies MCS) perspective. The aim is to examine how the materiality of porcelain can generate knowledge within MCS and to shed light on how it influenced the image of the Far East in Sweden during the mid-1700s. The study also wants to open up ways for further analyses of Chinese porcelain at the royal palaces in Sweden. Theory is drawn from various interdisciplinary fields of research and activates the concepts of transculturalism and agency to problematize how the porcelain objects was displayed at the castle and how they interact with the environment. The analyses also raise questions about the objects' age and stylistic development. The gaze of the Art historian and the knowledge of connoisseurship are discussed in a reflective section. The result of the study places the material culture and agency of porcelain as an actor with an important impact on the imagination of the utopian Far East in the 1700s but also as a transformer for cultural exchange between East and West. The objects are believed to have been of great importance as authentic props from a distant world and the discussion also takes into consideration the porcelain objects political influence as a status object and commodity.