Page 141 - A Re-examination of Late Qing Dynasty Porcelain, 1850-1920 THESIS

3.2 Establishing Collecting in China

While many scholars have denoted the beginning of collecting in the Western

world as the beginning of a porcelain obsession, this study finds that porcelain collecting

was not a pastime created by individuals in the Western world. In fact, this pastime was

enjoyed by individuals within China, which is where the earliest records of Chinese

porcelain collecting began. The collecting of porcelain within China laid a foundation

that other cultures appropriated and reinterpreted, allowing each culture that acquired

Chinese porcelain to shape its own unique collecting practices. As explored throughout

this research, the idea of collecting in China was found earlier within the imperial court

and served as a means of projecting authority. The practices that are now associated with

porcelain collecting originated within the context of collecting other art forms, because

porcelain had not yet been developed when these collecting practices were established.

The scholar Lothar Ledderose has established that collected objects legitimized the

emperor and proved undoubtedly that he possessed the mandate of heaven. 173 Collecting

in China has a long history, with the earliest documentation of collecting dating to the

emperors of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 AD). The emperors collected a wide variety

of objects including jades, bronzes, and calligraphy. 174 These early pursuits to claim

ownership of objects that conveyed a sense of power were recorded in the Zhanguoce 战

国策 (Annals of the Warring States) from prior to the second century BCE:

173 Lothar Ledderose, “Some Observations on the Imperial Art Collection in China,” Transactions
of the Oriental Ceramic Society 43 (1978): 33–46.
174 Shelagh Vainker, “Ceramics for Use,” in The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, ed. Jessica
Rawson (London: British Museum Press, 1992), 246.

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