Page 135 - 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

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and common people. The search for luxury goods occurred during a period of

considerable economic prosperity and luxurious living for many in the cities who

profited handsomely from an unprecedented level of economic growth, as well as

from a great influx of new world silver brought to China by overseas consumers who

used it to pay for Chinese-manufactured silks, porcelain and other goods that had

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captured the fancy of wealthy Europeans.

The majority of rich inhabitants of the Jiangnan region based in the areas of

Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Nanchang where silk, cotton, paper and porcelain

industries were located, were the most affluent in the whole country; wealthy

merchants, officials, intellectuals and artisans lived in these areas, which became the

cultural centres of the time. The rich often invested in collecting gold, silver and

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antiquities, as well as new luxury items of the latest fashion. The role of objects in

in the Ming period has been extensively addressed by Western scholars; of which the

38 He Bing di, The ladder of Success of Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility (New York
and London: Columbia University Press, 1962), p.42; Tong Shuye, Zhongguo shougongye
shangye fazhanshi [History of the development of Chinese Commercial and Handicraft Industry]
(Jinan, 1981), p.255.
39 Evelyn S. Rawski, ‘Economic and Social Foundation of Later Imperial Culture’ in David
Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan and Evelyn S. Rawski (eds.), Popular Culture in Late Imperial China
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), pp.3-4.
40 For a very detailed analysis of luxurious consumption during the late Ming period in Chinese
language, see Wu Renshu, Pinwei shehua: wanming de xiaofei shehui yu shidafu [Taste of Luxury:
Consumer Society and The Scholar-Literati Circle in the late Ming dynasty] (Taipei: Zhongyang
Yanjiuyuan, 2007).
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