Page 22 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

Jingdezhen, and that eventually enamelled porcelains found their way to be sold and

to be produced at the global market in Canton.

Secondly, this thesis aims to challenge the traditional narrative of Chinese

porcelain’s impact on world history, which has mostly focused on blue-and-white. We

should specify the difference between the blue and white and enamelled porcelain,

and not examine them as one and the same. Once we know the extent to which over-

glazed and colourful enamelled porcelain became available in global markets, it will

become clear that blue-and-white porcelain can no longer form the only focus for

analysing Chinese porcelain’s role in world history in the eighteenth century. As I will

show in this thesis, enamelled porcelain, as a new type of product, satisfied domestic

and overseas consumers’ latest tastes. Moreover, trade in enamelled porcelain between

China and the European countries changed the trade patterns of porcelain in Canton.

Thirdly, by historicizing more carefully the discourses and practices of the

production of enamels in different local manufacturing sites (Beijing, Jingdezhen,

Canton), I will show that the transmission of the technique, the technological

innovation that followed within the Chinese manufacturing practice, the expansion of

production in China, and the proliferation of the enamelled porcelain trade all took

place within a very short period of time, from the 1720s to the 1750s. Based on the

fact that there were various exchanges in technology, culture, design and knowledge

in this period, I will argue that during the eighteenth century, the history of domestic

wares and export wares could not be separated. In other words, the story of what

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