This clothes brush presumably came from a set of dressing equipment. It follows a shape that might have been made in silver in Europe but the Chinese maker has reinterpreted the design in his local material, the white, shining mother-of-pearl. Chinese makers were quick to take up European fashion and create their own versions of them to provide for the large and well-to-do markets of Europe. Such people made furniture, metalwork and ceramics in a particular version of European fashion that was created purely for export and differed from items made for the home market. Porcelain destined for Europe was often embellished with the buyer's coat of arms, and it was likely that all the pieces in the dressing set of which this brush formed part, would have carried the same emblem, just as a silver set may in Britain would have been engraved with the owner's arms.