In 1565, when trade opened with Asia, Spain began importing Chinese porcelain in large quantities, and by the mid-seventeenth century, Puebla ceramists had succumbed to the fashion for Chinese blue-on-white porcelain. At the height of the Spanish empire, Talavera Poblana enjoyed the widest distribution of any ceramic ware in the New World. Around the time of Mexican independence the Talavera Poblana ceramic tradition experienced a collapse, to be revived in the early twentieth century.

This collection of important examples of colonial, modern, and contemporary ceramics from Puebla celebrates the continuity of a ceramic tradition that both looks back to its cultural history and reveals a renewed contemporary vision.