Page 200 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 5 Porcelain Trade at Canton 1740-1760

eighteenth century, there were numerous porcelain shops in Canton. At this time,

retailers tended to specialise in shops selling items of a particular kind, such as

porcelain and lacquer ware.

According to Jörg, in the trade report of the Dutch East India Company of 1764

a good fifty shops are mentioned, which mainly sold porcelain of higher quality. The

names of about half the dealers are known from the records, and it is a striking fact

23
that a great many new names appear among them after 1760.
More remarkable than the number of the shops is the fact that these local retailers

were capable of meeting their customers’ needs. In the period 1740-1760, the private

trade of enamelled armorial porcelain reached its peak throughout the whole

eighteenth century. (Table 2)

Company 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s 1800s

EEIC 150 236 375 578 441 318 411 495 146

Spain 2 2 2 5 15 13 5 10 6
Dutch 0 85 92 65 35 29 31 0 16

Total 152 323 469 648 491 360 447 505 168

Table 2 The account of special order of enamelled porcelain. (Set of services).
Source: Jochem Kroes, Chinese Armorial Porcelain for the Dutch Market (Waanders,
2007), p.14.

Rocío Díaz, Chinese Armorial Porcelain for Spain (London and Lisbon: Jorge Welsh
Books, 2010).
David Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, vol.2 (Heirloom & Howard Limited, 2003).

Special orders of armorial porcelain were facilitated by the willingness of

shopkeepers to place orders for items they did not necessarily have in stock. Creating

an export-ware product was certainly about quality and design. It was about the design

23 Jörg, Porcelain and the Dutch China trade, p.116.
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