WASHINGTON, DC.- “Chinamania: Whistler and the Victorian Craze for Blue and White,” a small thematic exhibition on view at the Freer Gallery from Aug. 7 until Aug. 2011, explores the significance of Chinese export porcelain in Victorian England, where it began as an object of serious aesthetic inspiration but soon proliferated as a popular status symbol. The exhibition features 23 works of art: eight wash drawings of Kangxi porcelain produced by the American expatriate James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903) for a collector’s catalog; related examples of blue and white from the Freer Gallery’s “The Peacock Room”; and several paintings, pastels and etchings by Whistler that reflect his interest in Chinese porcelain. “Although Whistler disdained popular taste, it was his interest in blue and white—along with his knack for self-promotion—that helped catapult blue and white into the English mainstream,” said Lee Glazer, curator of Amer