Dr Florian Knothe is currently a Teaching Fellow in Art History at the University of Canterbury. He is Director of the University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong. He has long been interested in the early modern fascination with Chinoiserie and the way royal workshops and smaller private enterprises helped to create and cater to this long-lasting fashion.

Florian’s talk will explore the technological advances and stylistic influences of European glassmaking in China during the early eighteenth century—one of the lesser-known achievements of European missionaries—and the consequent production of an art form that still remains little studied and somewhat under-appreciated today.