Page 247 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

220 P. Fournier and R. Junco Sanchez

The commercial ties between New Spain and Asia were often considered by
historians in simple terms of a mechanism for Spain to obtain exotic and luxurious
goods, highly appreciated and consumed by the elites. However, our research
presents an image of wider consumption trends all over Mexico of both !ne and
coarse porcelain vessels, usually in urban centers but also in rural settings.
Despite several works by art historians mentioning Chinese porcelain objects
such as Meiping vases and table wares of the armorial or heraldic porcelain style
(e.g. Bonta de la Pezuela 2008) forming part of museum or private collections
today, perhaps the !rst mention of archaeological discoveries of porcelain shards in
Mexico must be credited to the American scholar Goggin (1968) during his work at
the Agustinian Huejotzingo monastery, close to the city of Puebla. In addition, the
construction of a subway system in Mexico City started an interest in colonial
ceramics, including Chinese porcelains. López Cervantes (1976–1977) who studied
the salvage archaeology collections, registered and briefly described Asian shards,
was the !rst Mexican archaeologist based at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología
e Historia (INAH) to make reference to this important kind of ceramics. From 1980
on, Patricia Fournier spent a great deal of time organizing a large collection of
Chinese porcelains from the former convent of San Jerónimo, located in downtown
Mexico City; by 1985 she !nished her bachelor’s thesis in archaeology, widely
distributed among colleagues interested in imported ceramics, and by 1990 she
published a major study of Asian wares, including for the !rst time stoneware jars
(Fournier 1990). This book laid the foundations all over Latin America and the
Caribbean to study Chinese ceramics in depth, to sort them by style, dynasties, and
reigns, and to build typological and well-de!ned chronological frameworks,
required in archaeological investigations as a comparative basis. After this
ground-breaking research, archaeologists have been classifying these wares and
many descriptive studies have been produced, although most simply mention the
presence of Chinese porcelains in archaeological collections, with no additional or
serious analyses (e.g. Nebot García 2010; Hernández Pons 2000; Velasquez et al.
2015b). However, some speci!c investigations have contributed to a better
understanding of trade networks (Bracamontes Guriérrez 2010; Fournier and
Bracamontes 2010; Junco 2006; Junco and Fournier 2008), smuggling (Junco
2006), prices of porcelain as status goods (Fournier 1997), inquiries into the design
patterns in blue on white Chinese vessels from stylistic and symbolic perspectives
(Fournier 2013; Terreros Espinosa 2012). Additionally, the influence of Asian
designs on majolica made in New Spain has been explored, both for vessels and
tiles (Castillo Cárdenas 2013, 2015).
Nowadays, the study of Chinese porcelains in Mexico is a vibrant and thriving
research topic, especially after archaeologists began studying the Manila Galleon
trade route, shipwreck collections, and most important, the recent excavations close
to the fortress of San Diego at the Paci!c port of Acapulco are revealing a wide
variety of Asian porcelains and stonewares that arrived in New Spain.