"Chinamania: Whistler and the Victorian Craze for Blue and White" is a small exhibition at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery which explores the significance of Chinese export porcelain in Victorian England, where it began as an object of serious aesthetic inspiration but soon proliferated as a popular status symbol. The exhibition features 23 works of art: eight wash drawings of Kangxi porcelain produced by the American expatriate James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903) for a collector's catalog; related examples of blue and white from the Freer Gallery's "The Peacock Room"; and several paintings, pastels and etchings by Whistler that reflect his interest in Chinese porcelain.
