Page 214 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 6 A New Context of Porcelain Trade 1760-1770

supercargo’s report, referring to a ‘completely white piece in order to be painted here

(Canton)’ to support the idea that Canton was capable of producing enamelled

5
porcelain. However, the latter evidence was dated 1772, which was two decades

6
later than those white pieces. Such evidences could also be interpreted to mean that
those undecorated pieces were not intended to be enamelled at Canton, but for selling

as final products, or for decorating in the Netherlands. Helen Espir has shown in her

comprehensive study on European decorated Chinese porcelain that, as early as 1720,

7
the Dutch painter had already started to paint enamel on Chinese porcelain.

Moreover, the existence of enamel porcelain workshops in the 1740s is not

supported by the data collected from VOC and EEIC trade records, which shows no

8
evidence of the growth of imported pieces of enamelled porcelain in the 1740s. Only
in the late 1750s did the quantities of exported pieces of enamelled porcelain at Canton

increase explicitly. I will show this in the following sections of this chapter.

According to private trade records, such as the data on armorial porcelain, whose

9
armorial porcelain was imported in growing numbers in the 1750s, it could be argued

that Canton might have established workshops on enamelled porcelain production in

the 1750s. However, even if there was an enamelled porcelain workshop in the 1750s,

the production scale would not be as big as Hickey had observed.

Questions follow from the undeniable evidence that Canton was becoming a

crucial player in producing enamelled porcelain in the 1760s. How was this possible

5 Ibid.
6 Jörg, Porcelain and the Dutch Trade, p.353, note 131.
7 Helen Espir, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain 1700-1830 (London, 2005), p.151.
This book is by far the most comprehensive study on this subject. Hellen is a collector and an
independent collector of Chinese export porcelain.
8 See the previous chapter: Chapter 5.
9 The number of armorial services reached its peak during the 1750s. See, David Howard, Chinese
Armorial Porcelain (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1974), pp.106-107; David Howard,
Chinese Armorial Porcelain (Heirloom & Howard Ltd., 2003), p.75.
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