In England, porcelain had been a comparatively rare luxury confined to the tables and closets of rich collectors until about 1630. Cromwell laid a heavy duty on it. China-shops under the Restoration became one of the favourite lounging-places of fops and curiosity hunters, and the appointments made there caused them to fall into bad repute. Later, emporiums of Oriental wares were known as India houses. Queen Mary while only the Princess of Orange in Holland, had developed quite a craze for porcelain and Indian goods of all kinds. When she became Queen of England, Sir Christopher Wren designed cabinets and shelves for her china in Hampton Court Palace.

Lord Nottingham in his news-letter descriptive of Queen Mary's movements (1689) says: "Her majesty being disappointed of her second play, amused herself with other diversions. She dined at Mrs. Graden's, the famous woman in the hall, that sells fine ribbons and headdresses. From thence she went to Mrs. Ferguson's to de Vetts and other Indian houses."

With such tastes in high places, it is not astonishing to find a popular furore for China and everything Oriental, spurious and real. This Chinese taste affected everything in architecture and interior decoration.

With regard to architecture, the ill-understood Gothic had fallen into very bad odour. John Evelyn's opinion of it (1697) is worth quoting. He says: "A certain fantastical and licencious manner of building which we have since called Modern (or Gothic rather) congestions of heavy, dark, melancholy and monkish piles without any just proportion, use or beauty. ... So when we meet with the greatest industry and expensive carving, full of fret and lamentable Imagry a judicious spectator is distracted and quite confounded. . . . Not that there is not something of solid and odly artificial too, after a sort; but then the universal and unreasonable thickness of the walls, clumsy buttresses, towers, sharp-pointed arches, doors and other apertures without proportion; nonsense insertions of various marbles impertinently placed; turrets and pinnacles thickset with Munkies and chimaeras and abundance of busy work and other incongruities dissipate and break the angles of the sight and so confound it that one cannot consider it with any steadiness. . . . Vast and gigantic buildings indeed but not worthy the name of architecture."

Domestic architecture, however, was undergoing considerable changes under the new influences. These changes were in the direction of comfort and cosiness, to the sacrifice of grandeur and magnificence. Of course, novelty aroused opposition. Evelyn (1697) protests:

"As certain great masters invented certain new corbels, scrolls and modilions, which were brought into use; so their followers animated by their example (but with much less judgment) have presumed to introduce sundry baubles and trifling decorations (as they fancy) in their works. . . . And therefore, tho' such devices and inventions may seem pretty in cabinet-work, tables, frames and other joyners-work for variety, to place china dishes upon; one would by no means encourage or admit them in great and noble buildings."

The changes in domestic architecture are noticed by Du Bois, who issued a new and sumptuous edition of Palladio (the plates engraved by Picart) in 1715. Among other things he says:

"We see so many bungled houses and so oddly contrived that they seem to have been made only to be admired by ignorant men and to raise the laughter of those who are sensible of such imperfections. Most of them are like bird cages, by reason of the largeness and too great number of windows; or like prisons, because of the darkness of the rooms, passages and stairs. Some want the most essential part, I mean the Entablature or cornice; and though it be the best fence against the injuries of the weather, it is left out to save charges. In some other houses, the rooms are so small and strait, that one knows not where to place the most necessary furniture. Others, through the oddness of some new and insignificant ornaments, seem to exceed the wildest Gothic. It were an endless thing to enumerate all the absurdities which many of our builders introduce every day into their way of building."

The changes in interior decoration that contributed to form the Queen Anne style were largely due to the requirements of the effective display and preservation of porcelain. The chimney-piece, especially, was affected. As early as 1691, D'Aviler says in his book on architecture: "The height of the cornice (of the chimney-pieces) should be raised six feet in order that the vases with which they are ornamented may not be knocked down."

A glance through Marot's book of designs will show a most lavish use of china as an integral part of interior decoration. He piles up his chimney-pieces with tier on tier on shelves loaded with porcelain of all shapes and sizes, arranged, however, with an eye to symmetry. Brackets up the walls, in the corners, and between the panels, all along the cornice, and over the door are loaded with cups, bowls, and vases. The panels themselves are sometimes painted with Chinese subjects, or covered with real Oriental painted or embroidered fabrics. A glance at Plate XVIII., the walls and chimney-piece of which are reproduced closely from one of Marot's designs, will show one of the more formal Queen Anne rooms, properly decorated in accordance with the taste of the day. This is a modest specimen of this style of decoration. One of Marot's plates shows more than 300 pieces of china on the chimney-piece alone. The china craze was rapidly increasing. Addison writes: "An old lady of fourscore shall be so busy in cleaning an Indian mandarin as her great-grand-daughter is in dressing her baby." In 1711, also he gives the following description of a lady's library: