"Although Whistler disdained popular taste, it was his interest in blue and white — along with his knack for self-promotion — that helped catapult blue and white into the English mainstream," said Lee Glazer, curator of American art and organizer of the exhibition. "He was so successful that soon he could no longer afford the very pots that he had helped to popularize."

The blue-and-white porcelain collected by the Victorians was primarily manufactured in China during the late 17th century for a European market. In 1863, Whistler purchased a number of pieces from shops in London, Amsterdam and Paris in an attempt to shed the influence of French realism and develop a more original style, one in which art, not life, was the inspiration. Dressing up in a Chinese robe, amassing a significant collection of blue and white and incorporating the sinuous forms and delicate patterns of Kangxi ware into his own paintings allowed Whistler to construct a public persona and an artistic style that was, as he said, " ... as far removed from the joys and trouble of mere humanity as so many pieces of Oriental porcelain."