Faenza becomes the main centre for the production of the Italian tin-glazed earthenware known as majolica

Ceramic artists in Italy decorate large majolica dishes with scenes of narrative history, giving this style the name istoriato

Soft-paste porcelain, in imitation of true porcelain from China, is successfully created for the Medici in Florence

The shogun's Tea Master awards a gold seal with the one word raku ('felicity') to a beautiful bowl, thus naming Japan's most famous ware

Delft becomes the centre for tin-glazed earthenware in nothern Europe, specializing in the blue-and-white Chinese style

Jean-Baptiste Colbert buys the Gobelin family workshops in Paris and transforms them into a royal factory for Louis XIV

Members of the Sakaida Kakiemon family are producing exquisitely decorated porcelain ware in Japan

Dutch traders purchase Kakiemon wares in Japan for import to the Netherlands

Chinoiserie becomes the new craze in Europe, after Jesuit reports of the Chinese civilization

The secret of true porcelain is at last discovered in the west, at Dresden, by Johann Friedrich Böttger

The lighter rococo style, beginning in France, becomes an extension of the baroque

Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood sets up a factory of his own in his home town of Burslem

Francisco de Goya begins a series of designs for tapestries to be made in Spain's Royal Tapestry Factory

English collector Thomas Hope publishes his Greek and Egyptian designs in Household Furniture and Interior Decoration

English architect and designer Augustus Welby Pugin plays a major part in the second stage of the Gothic Revival

Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife exhibit together at the Sezession show in Vienna

Charles Rennie Mackintosh designs the interior of Miss Cranston's Ingram Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow

Charles Rennie Mackintosh completes the Willow Tea Rooms in Glasgow for Miss Cranston

Bernard Leach moves to Japan to study oriental traditions in the graphic arts

René Lalique, originally known for his jewellery, sets up his own glass-making factory at Combes-la-Ville

Austrian artist Gustav Klimt completes his designs for mosaics in the Palais Stoclet in Brussels

Bernard Leach discovers his skill and future craft at a raku party in Japan, where each guest is invited to throw a pot

Dutch designer Gerrit Rietveld produces his 'Red and Blue Chair', under the influence of the De Stijl movement

The Japanese potter Shoji Hamada accompanies Bernard Leach on his return to England

On his return to Britain from the far east, Bernard Leach sets up a pottery studio in St Ives