The gendered power of porcelain among early modern European dynasties

[Extract] This chapter analyses how porcelain became a tool of power for early modern women and men, in specific and distinct ways, over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We explore porcelain’s trajectory as a gendered political tool as it was displayed, exchanged and maintained by elite dynasties, particularly those connected with the House of Orange-Nassau, and as it was adopted by other ruling families to convey messages of power. 1 We argue that neither men nor women were passive consumers of such material objects but instead used porcelain to make and display power and to perform political work.