Page 231 - 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

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of the quay. In 1760, many of these outside merchants were required to move to

China Street so that that they could be monitored more closely. The by-product of this

regulation was the gradual emergence of a very tight community, where Chinese

merchants, officials and foreign traders all lived together in the same location.

Foreigners could find anything they wanted on China Street or Hog Lane without

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having to wander about the western suburbs, as they had done in the past.

Dalrymple, who was in Canton in 1760, witnessed the changes that took place in

trade that year. He mentioned that all the licensed shopkeepers were moved to ‘One

single street, which was separated by a gate from the rest of Canton, only open to the

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Wharf, on the banks of the River, where the European Factories are situated. The

street later was known as ‘China Street’ or ‘New China Street’.

From 1760 onwards, the factory and the two streets were usually depicted on

paintings and porcelain. The scene of Hongs and factory was usually depicted on a

big bowl, as called ‘Hong Bowl’. A large bowl of this kind would have been used to

serve punch, which gives such bowl another name ‘punch bowl’. Hong bowls of this

kind have been used for the historical discussion of Hong merchants’ residences,

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which provide supplementary information for the map and textual records.

Decorated in over-glaze enamels and gold gilding, the bowls that Figure 6-2 shows

44 Paul A. Van Dyke, ‘The Shopping Streets in the Foreign Quarter at Canton 1760-1843’ Revista
de Cultura 43 (2013), p.93. This article was later published as a chapter in Paul A. Van Dyke,
Maria Kar-wing Mok, Images of the Canton Factories 1760–1822: Reading History in Art (Hong
Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015), Chapter 9, pp.83-101. Lisa Hellman in her Ph.D
research, has featured Canton as a social space which created social connections among different
European East India Companies. Lisa Hellman, Navigating the foreign quarters: everyday life of
the Swedish East India Company employees in Canton and Macao 1730-1830 (Stockholm, 2015),
pp.108-103.
45 Van Dyke, Mok, Images of the Canton Factories, p.2.
46 Van Dyke, ‘The Shopping Streets ‘, p.93.
47 Kee Il Choi Jr., ‘Hong Bowls and the Landscape of the China Trade’ The Magazine Antiques,
156, 4(1999), pp.500-509.Van Dyke, Mok, Images of the Canton Factories, Chapter 1.
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