Page 151 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780
P. 151
CHAPTER 3 Enamelled Porcelain Consumption in Eighteenth-century China
Figure 3-11 A porcelain dealer’s welcome banquet by his trade guild.
Album leaf, 19 x 20 cm.Watercolour on paper, c.1750s.
Photo Courtesy of Hong Kong Maritime Museum
Figure 3-11 shows a porcelain dealer being greeted by a local trade guild,
presumably of the dealer’s origin. The dealer would have lived in this trade guild until
he had finished all the transactions in Jingdezhen. Members of the guild helped him
to contact the porcelain brokers to make his contract.
3.6.2. Brokerage System
Jingdezhen was situated in a region characterised by merchants and a highly-
developed trade network. From the sixteenth to the early eighteenth century the
standard Chinese process for long distance trade involved brokers in-between the
buyer and seller of goods. The trade was regulated by merchants from producing areas
135
