Page 147 - 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

3.6. Distribution of Porcelain at Jingdezhen

From the mid-fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, Jingdezhen became the dominant

centre of porcelain production for the Chinese domestic market and global markets.

Different groups of consumers from China and overseas had particular and often

changing demands. Apart from its dominant role in producing porcelain, it was also a

market town and a distribution centre for ceramics produced in other local regions. In

order to satisfy their clients, Jingdezhen developed a sophisticated system of selling

its products.

By far the most comprehensive study on the distribution and marketing of

porcelain trade at Jingdezhen was conducted by Michael Dillon and Liang Miaotai.

Michael Dillon has demonstrated the industrial production of Jingdezhen and the

transportation, the distribution of porcelain in the domestic market and export markets

64
from the Ming period till the 1970s. Liang Miaotai made his contribution by

demonstrating the economic relations between Jingdezhen and the surrounding

65
markets during the Ming and Qing periods.
This section will draw attention to their works, the primary sources, as well as

some visual representations to show how porcelain was traded at Jingdezhen in the

eighteenth century. Although most of the surviving primary resources concerning

Jingdezhen’s commercial history were of the late nineteenth century and early

64 Michael Dillon, ‘A history of the porcelain industry in Jingdezhen’, (PhD thesis, University of
Leeds, 1976); part of this thesis was published as follows: ‘Jingdezhen as Ming industrial centre’,
Ming Studies, 1(1978), pp.37-44.
65 Liang Miaotai, Ming Qing Jingdezhen Chengshi Jingji Yanjiu [The Economy of Jingdezhen
during Ming and Qing periods] (2nd edn, Nanchang: Jiangxi Renmin chubanshe, 2004).
131