Page 138 - 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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the consumer society. These works have been highly influential to studies on
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consumption in contemporary China.

Unlike current studies that consider luxury goods as a general concept to explore

the economic role in the society, my research focuses on a particular item, enamelled

porcelain to explore what was luxury to eighteenth century China, and on what scale

enamelled porcelain was consumed. Shelagh Vainker argued that paintings, antiques,

bronzes and jades were consumed as luxuries, but not porcelain. She pointed out that

porcelain was consumed because of the actual functions it was capable of

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performing. As we will see from the evidence, enamelled porcelain was in fact
treated as a desirable item, along with other objects. More importantly, it will be

shown in the following section that the perception of enamelled porcelain changes

through space and time, shifting from desirable luxury items to daily use of the

product. It will also be shown that such a shift was associated with geographic

production and the distribution of enamelled porcelain.

As the previous chapter has shown, the production of enamelled porcelain before

1729 was in small scales at small workshops. As a result, enamelled porcelain was

only available among the imperial court at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Because production was on a very small scale, the only access to these enamelled

porcelains beyond the court was the gift from the emperor. For example, in 1724, the

45 Maxine Berg, ‘In Pursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in the
Eighteenth Century’ Past and Present, 182, 2(2004), pp.85-143; Luxury and Pleasure in
Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
46 For example, the Taiwanese historian, Wu Renshu, the author of Pinwei shehua: wanming de
xiaofei shehui yu shidafu [Taste of Luxury: Consumer Society and The Scholar-Literati Circle in
the late Ming dynasty] acknowledged that works from Western scholars have inspired him and
provide him much insights on the study of luxury consumption, Wu Renshu, Pinwei shehua, p.318.
47 Vainker, ‘Luxury or Not’, pp.214-215.
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