Early eighteenth-century silks are remarkable for their profusion of exotic patterns. The European textile designers who created them were inspired as much by travellers’ tales as by wares imported to Europe by sea from the Near and Far East. These were the influences that give rise to silks with bizarre compositions and chinoiserie. The origin of the individual motifs cannot be identified in most cases. Besides, many inventions combined known models with the artists’ own notions of how faraway worlds might look. Media Release