In addition to the narrative accounts transmitted to Europe, information regarding China was also diffused through the trade in commodities conducted by the various European East Indies Companies and a flood of U.S. traders after 1784. Large quantities of Chinese porcelain, lacquer, silk, furniture, paper screens, wallpapers and fans were exported to Europe and the United States, and used to create an “Oriental” atmosphere in Western households.[3] These fruits of trade stimulated Western interest in an “exotic” China, contributing to and building upon the 18th-century rococo aesthetic of chinoiserie, a derisive miming of an imaginary Asian exoticism. Among the exported artifacts found in Western homes was a new style of Chinese painting created by Cantonese artists catering specifically to the foreign market. This export art became an integral source of information on Chinese culture for Europeans and Americans in the late 18th through 19th century, and it therefore deserves close scrutiny by scholars of Sino-Western history.