Page 130 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 3 Enamelled Porcelain Consumption in Eighteenth-century China

as more were brought in and more people were exposed to them and began to consume

them. According to a local literato, Liang Zhangju, the popularity and exquisiteness

of foreign imports reached its greatness in the nineteenth century. Liang Zhangju 梁

章钜(1775-1849) remembered this vividly:

The luxury and delicacy of its carvings and the beauty of the

utensils …now are just commonplace. Waiyang [foreign] things are the

most fashionable… Even utensils and decorations are called yang [foreign]

copper, yang porcelain, yang paint, yang blue, yang red, yang paper, yang

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picture.
Yanghuo (foreign things,洋货) was very popular among the literati and high-

ranking officials and middle class in the eighteenth century. During the mid-

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eighteenth century, more yanghuo shops were opened. These shops sold imported

goods from other countries, mainly in the following categories: textiles and garments,

food and sundried foods, the household items, ship-building materials, mixed

materials of paper and metals. 35 In a painting commissioned by the Emperor

Qianlong in 1757 and painted by the court artist Xu Yang 徐扬 depicts the shopping

activities in Suzhou. Two shops were depicted as yanghuo stores in the city centre,

33 Liang assembled his travelling notes, and comments on other contemporary literature. This was
published in 1837. Liang Zhangju, Tuian suibi [Random Notes] (Taipei: 1971), vol.7, pp.371-372.
34 Lai Huimin, ‘Qing Qianlongchao neiwufu de pihuo yu jingcheng [The fashion of fur in the
Qing court of the Qianlong period], gugong xueshu jikan [Research Quarterly of the National
Palace Museum], 21, 1(2003), pp.101-134. ‘Guaren haohuo: Qianlong di yu gusu fanhua’
[Qianlong emperor’s taste and the influence to local manufacture at Suzhou], Zhongyang yanjiu
yuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan [The Journal of Academia Sinica], 50, 12(2005), pp.185-233.
35 For a detailed list of imported goods, see Zheng, China on the Sea, pp.222-223.
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