At the dawn of the 17^th Century, Western Civilization began to get its first detailed glimpse into the hidden empire of China. Along with this contact came stories from far-off East Asia igniting curiosity and fascination for the mysterious Far East. The Chinese influence on Western art and culture had begun. Fine Chinese porcelain began to trickle back to England, where it was highly prized and valued. Only the elite could even begin to think of owning such china.
    Chinese porcelain was characterized by deep blue, hand-painted designs, usually landscapes or buildings (pagodas and the like), on a brilliant white ware. It took English potters nearly a century to perfect an emulation of this porcelain. The use of cobalt oxide as an underglaze was first employed in the 1500's. The Chinese discovered that this metal, brown on application, would produce a beautiful deep blue when fired at the high temperatures required by porcelain. It was the only chemical compound known to withstand these temperatures. Hence the famous Chinese blue and white porcelain was born.

In the middle of the 18^th Century, English potters had finally perfected the use of cobalt oxide at high temperatures. To emulate the white Chinese porcelain, they developed a kind of salt-glaze earthenware, which was far whiter than ordinary stoneware. This marked a major economic advancement of the "china" industry in England; mimics of the extremely expensive Chinese porcelain could be made available to the middle classes at much less production cost. The earliest English blue and white china and porcelain, from the mid-1700's are of course museum pieces today; hand-painted, with sharp oriental motifs.