Page 219 - 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

trade were mainly outside merchants, and in the year 1757, the VOC put an end to the

17
monopoly of Hong merchants. This explains why the number of shopkeepers grew

18
rapidly during the 1740s and 1750s. The association of Security Merchants and the

growing shopkeepers is not yet recognised in current studies, and is generally ignored

and overlooked. However, the link between Hong merchants and non-Hong merchant

porcelain dealers constitutes a very important factor that influenced the trade, and is

ultimately helpful for an understanding of the porcelain trade.

The business of shopkeepers and porcelain dealers never raised attention from the

Qing local government. However, when Hong merchants, especially Security

Merchants, were confronting the problems of the mid-eighteenth century, the local

government realised that the regulation of shopkeepers and their trade was necessary,

although individually, their porcelain trade was in small scale. Local authorities

believed that the collective scale of trade first affected the trade of Hong merchants,

and more importantly, their trade was largely left to be free.

The link between Hong merchants and porcelain dealers of the eighteenth century

Canton is rarely mentioned or studied in present scholarship. Yet, their relations have

played an important role in the trade. As we can see from this section, the problems

of Security Merchants resulted in a shortage of the goods, which led the East India

Companies to purchase porcelain from outside non-Hong merchants. This explains

why during the 1750s, the number of porcelain shops increased. As we will see in the

following section, because of the increasing number of porcelain shops and trade, the

local government started to take the control of the porcelain trade.

17 Jörg, Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade, p.114.
18 Appendix A and Jörg, Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade, p.116.
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