Page 204 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 5 Porcelain Trade at Canton 1740-1760

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advanced age, and others by children even so young as six or seven year.’ Similarly,

Chinese textural records believed the production of enamelled porcelain at Canton

was derived from the late Qianlong reign, and flourished during the early nineteenth

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century.
Moreover, the quality of the paintings of enamelled porcelain prior to 1760

suggests that both the porcelain and the enamel painting were produced in

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Jingdezhen. In terms of private trade of armorial porcelain, there is a contradiction
concerning mistakes in private orders. Certain errors were found in the specially

ordered armorial porcelain, such as superimposing one coat of arms on another, crests

facing in the wrong direction, painting the coat of arms in wrong colours, depicting

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lions as tigers. If porcelain was enamelled at Canton, it would be rejected if it was
painted incorrectly.

Nonetheless, there are some objects that required particular attention, as they

were used to prove that Canton could enamel porcelain at the time. (Figure 5-3 and

Figure 5-4) Bushell has noticed that a piece of enamelled porcelain was signed with

the inscription of artist’s seal ‘white stone’ (白石) and ‘painted by painters in Canton’

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(岭南绘者) and attempted to prove that the artist’s atelier was in the city. (Figure

5-3) Similar objects can be found in the Rijksmuseum collection, one small vase

decorated with a court lady playing a game (Figure 5-4) and one pair of cups and

29 Alfred Spencer (ed.,), Memoirs of William Hickey 1749-1775, vol. 1 (London: Hurst & Blackett,
Ltd., 1913), p.210; https://archive.org/details/memoirsofwilliam015028mbp, Accessed on 14
February 2016.
30 Ji Yuansou, TaoYa [The elegance of porcelain], vol.2 (Beijing, 1918).
31 Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911 (V&A Publication:
London, 1986), p.30.
32 For examples of mistakes, C. J. A. Jörg, (ed.), Chinese Export Porcelain: Chine de Commande
from the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1989), pp.
236–37
33 Bushell, Chinese Art, p.40.
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