Page 149 - A Re-examination of Late Qing Dynasty Porcelain, 1850-1920 THESIS

highlight a continuation of Chinese collectors valuing traditional porcelain rather than

porcelain produced contemporaneously.

While early Chinese collecting practices focused primarily on the holdings of the

emperor, later Chinese porcelain collectors broadened the scope of what types of wares

were collected. Chinese collectors placed importance on the porcelain that reveals the

best overall quality in regard to form, glaze, and painted motifs. The wares emphasized

by collectors appear to be those that were equivalent to an imperial quality or were in fact

imperial wares. Overall, Chinese collectors held themselves to a high standard of

collecting by focusing on porcelains that were exemplary and avoiding wares that had the

distinct characteristics of export wares. These export wares are investigated in the

following section. The idea of imperial quality compared to export quality highlights the

major difference between early historic Eastern and Western porcelain collecting.

Although the thought process and ideas behind the collections of the East and West may

have different foundations, both of these collecting groups shared a similar end goal,

which was to acquire porcelain in order to establish themselves as a member of the social

elite. Along with this, the appeal of aesthetic pleasure spanned collecting in both the East

and the West. While material culture shifted the connotation of porcelain within the East

and West, at its core, porcelain maintained itself as a representation of wealth, power, and

imperial prestige.

3.3 Early Porcelain Collecting in Europe

Despite the traditions of collecting established in China that emphasized imperial

quality, the West took porcelain collecting in an entirely different direction. One of the

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