My dissertation investigates the sociocultural dynamics of early eighteenth-century German principalities by examining how princely Chinese rooms articulated power, prestige, and the construction of both the self and the “other.” Focusing on key examples, including Augustus II the Strong’s Japanese Palace, Frederick I of Prussia’s lacquer room in the Berlin Palace, and the porcelain room at Charlottenburg Palace, it combines historical accounts with a range of theoretical perspectives to illuminate how these interiors shaped princely identity and authority.

During my research stay at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, I will examine primary sources, including seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit accounts and contemporary geographies of East Asia, particularly China, to investigate how they shaped European perceptions and reinterpretations of East Asia, how these ideas were mediated through chinoiserie, and how they informed broader representations of power.