Page 149 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780
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CHAPTER 3 Enamelled Porcelain Consumption in Eighteenth-century China
like-minded people from the same home regions and cherishing local customs.
Common geographic origins thus played a vital economic and social role when
merchants founded such a trade guild, with their characteristics of native-place
associations established in connection with long-distance trade. For instance, a
merchant from Canton would make contact with a broker who deals with his province.
This broker would then send for samples and arrange the details of the sale, quantities
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and prices, and help with arranging transportation as well.
According to a report in the early twentieth century, there were twenty-four trade
guilds in Jingdezhen. Table 1 indicates their original locations and the time they were
established. It shows that most of the trade guilds were established during the Qing
dynasty and the number of the trade guilds outside Jiangxi was increasing. Merchants
from other places who travelled to Jingdezhen brought goods such as textiles, grain,
cotton, salt, medicine and tea to Jingdezhen and took porcelain on their way back.
Jingdezhen also relied on the supply of raw materials from other places. For instance,
the pigment cobalt blue was mainly supplied from Yunnan province, Southwest of
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China. Among those trade guilds for other provinces, merchants from Anhui (Hui
merchant) were the biggest group, as Anhui itself had four guilds trading porcelain
from Jingdezhen to Anhui. Hui merchants also traded salt, textiles, cotton, medicines
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and grain.
With economic development, these institutions also became gradually more and
more specified according to different commercial areas. The trade guilds served as
meeting places to gain information about market and price developments, about
66 Lan Pu, Jingdezhen taolu, p.113.
67 Liang Miaotai, Ming Qing Jingdezhen, p.434.
68 Jingdezhen wenshi ziliao weiyuan hui (ed.), Jingdezhen wenshi ziliao [Selected documents on
Jingdezhen’s history] (Jiangxi, 1984), Volume 1, p.74.
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