Page 208 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 5 Porcelain Trade at Canton 1740-1760

painting method is used. Sometimes, it was quite difficult to paint, skilful painting

techniques are essential, and it is necessary to test colours before painting on the actual

39
piece.’ Even the main production site of enamelled porcelain at Jingdezhen

regarded enamel paintings on porcelain as somewhat difficult, so that it was quite

impossible for the Canton local workshop to produce such pieces.

A recent catalogue of enamelled copperwares of the Qing dynasty reveals another

direction, namely that some designs of the enamelled copperwares were actually

imitations of enamelled porcelain. The vast majority of enamelled copperware was

proved to follow a range of export porcelain during the second half of the eighteenth

40
century, and was pointed out as being ‘by no means one-way.’ In this book, Jörg

concludes that Cantonese craftsmen experimented with muffle kilns in or around

Canton in 1735-1740 in order to fire porcelain and the production of enamelled

41
copperwares was boosted by demand from foreign markets. Jörg’s research shows

that the trade of enamelled porcelain urged the expansion of enamelled copperwares

production in about the 1730s. The impulse of the enamelled porcelain trade to the

local workshop was important. However, the assumed period in the 1730s is

hypothetical and also problematic. Based on the fact that most of the enamelled

copperware was made in the second half of the eighteenth century, the experiment of

painting enamel on porcelain could not have been earlier than the 1750s. As argued

39 Tang Ying, Taoye Tuce [The Illustration of Porcelain Production], (1743), quoted from Shi
Jingfei, ‘A Record of Cultural Exchange between the East and the West in the Eighteenth Century:
the Manufacture of ‘Painted enamels’ in the Qing Court’ Gugong Xueshu Jikan [Research
Quarterly of the National Palace Museum], 24 (2007), p.65.
40 Luisa Vinhais, Jorge Welsh (eds.), China of all Colours: Painted Enamels on Copper (London:
Jorge Welsh Research and Publishing, 2015), pp.30-36.
41 C.A. Jörg, ‘Chinese Enamelled Copper for Export’ in Luisa Vinhais, Jorge Welsh (eds.) China
of all Colours, pp.39-48.
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