Chinoiserie at its best........

I found an old photo from a time when I was a Garden History student. Remembering Stowe landscape park is still vivid in my mind. The disbelief that a wooded structure such as this could be left out to the elements to deteriorate, dumbfounded me. During the past 275 years or so, it has been moved, sold, and finally relocated to the place that it began its life. Care must be taken of such structures, as they represent an interesting time when East and West were much less understood by one other. William Chambers was only the beginning of the infatuation with the Far East by Europe, leading to Delftware, English landscape gardens, Sharawadgi, and all other things 'Chinese'.