Page 61 - Export Porcelain and Globakization- GOOD READ

ceramics and European ceramics influenced by imports from Asia. The internationally
studied imperial ware of China (called guanyao) or Korea is missing for obvious
reasons: first, most originals are safely located in the most famous ceramic collections
such as in the palace museums of Beijing and Taipei, in numerous Chinese provincial
museums, the Percival David Foundation and the Victoria and Albert Museum or in
the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. Second, the Chinese art price boom or bubble of the
recent years made the rare pieces which are not part of museum collections
unaffordable. Also, Islamic ceramics are unfortunately missing, since they are quite
rare and have hardly been exported to Europe.
Publications on ceramics of daily use for common people (called minyao in China)
and on the Chinese export ceramics to Europe and Asian neighbors are still quite
limited in number. This applies to Chinese export table ware which is normally not
part of European court collections, but also to Thai and Vietnamese ware which was
mainly produced for trading purposes. Older publications on Chinese export porcelain
to Europe focus mainly on the chine-de-command and armorial porcelain. This is
quite astonishing bearing in mind, that porcelain decoration on demand has played a
minor role. Less than five percent of the approximately 185 million pieces has been
decorated according to European motives such as copper engravings or European
coats of arms. Most of the cargo has been blue and white and Famille Rose with
Chinese designs or at least in a “kind-of China” style. The collection and the analysis
have tried to be more representative. The documentation shall help to partly fill these
gaps and shall also highlight, that ceramics are in the first place products for daily use
– a fact which might get lost because most of the current museum collections display
pieces which have been made for courts or for decoration only – and which are not
allowed to be touched anyway.
Ceramics are fragile, easy to break and the likelihood that they get damaged or
broken grows the older they are. Ceramics fascinate everyone who is attracted by the
idea of owning and touching something which is hundreds of years old and has
experienced generations of human beings and the history of past centuries. But still,
apart from the old collections we find these days in museums, not many Asian
ceramics have survived the centuries of war, natural disasters, migration, the rise and
fall of cities and empires characterizing this region. China and Vietnam for example
are both countries with a violent history even up to recent days. Remember that these
days we find hardly any houses in China which are older than 50 years. I assume that
Italian cities like Rome, Venice or Florence have more houses older than 400 years
than you could find in the whole of China. How could a fine and thin dish have
survived all these centuries of destruction and rebuilding?
This brings us to the fascinating story of maritime archaeology – fascinating
because of the treasure hunter stories and of the adventures, but also the hazards the
expeditions have faced. More than a million pieces of Asian shipwreck ceramics
together with about 180 ships have been discovered over the last four decades 102 .
Most ceramics were products for the inner Asian markets. Famous hoards have been
found by the Australian Michael Hatcher 103 who discovered, for example, the Chinese
junk Tek Sing with around 350,000 pieces of porcelain auctioned in 1999 in Stuttgart,
and the Dutch VOC ship Geldermalsen with over 150,000 pieces of porcelain sold in
an auction by Christie’s in Amsterdam. The latter hoard slept on the seabed off
Sumatra for about 250 years before it was lifted and sold in Europe with an auction
number and record. Companies such as Maritime Explorations 104 and Nanhai Marine
Archaeology 105 specialize in maritime archaeology and have found dozens of
shipwrecks in the South China Sea. The maritime archaeologists Michael Flecker,
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