Nine art historians analyze the fascination with porcelain figures during the 18th century, placing it within a larger context of social and psychological conditions, and treating the figures with the same rigor usually reserved for painting and sculpture. Among the topics are porcelain, secrecy, and the 18th-century culture of invention; French porcelain flowers and the rhetoric of the garnish; porcelain and theatrical display; the queen's nécessaire; porcelain, print culture, and mercantile aesthetics; sugarboxes and blackamoors: ornamental blackness in early Meisson porcelain; and relations between the Royal Academy of San Fernando and the Royal Porcelain Factory of the Buen Retiro. In addition to the many black-and-white photographs throughout the text are 12 color plates. The papers are from a 2006 conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)