Page 18 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

patterns of consumption of eighteenth-century China. It reveals that the enamelled

porcelain of the eighteenth century was not exclusively consumed by the Imperial

Court or the export market, as has often been assumed, but was also consumed within

the domestic market. Finally, it investigates the enamelled porcelain trade between

China and the English East India Company (Hereafter, the EEIC) to explore the

impact of such new products on trade in Canton.

In this introduction, I will first clarify the terms in use for enamelled porcelain

and then introduce my main arguments and the purpose of this thesis. Then I will

consider the literature related to enamelled porcelain in different research fields. In

the fourth section I will introduce the main sources and the methodology used for my

research. The last section will provide an explanation of the structure of this

dissertation.

1.1. Clarification of Terminology

The technique of applying enamels over the glaze in China’s porcelain production can

be dated back to the thirteenth century in northern China. By the end of the fifteenth

century, Jingdezhen potters were able to use six enamel colours: red, yellow, green,

turquoise, aubergine, and black. By the 1720s, new enamel colours were introduced

to China, which were translucent and opaque over-glaze colours. These new enamels

were used to paint porcelain at the imperial workshops in the court and then

transferred to manufacture in Jingdezhen. The development of new enamels consisted

primarily of three new enamels: ruby enamel, opaque white and opaque yellow.

During the Yongzheng reign (1723-1735), the manufacture of enamel colours yielded

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