Page 234 - 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

Sweetia

Year Amount of Silver(taels)

1742 19
1751 1215
1753 1825

1755 7944
1761 2518

Geequa

Year Amount of Silver(taels)
1740 Unknown

1742 78
1750 734
1751 2258

1761 790

Table 3 The Investment of Sweetia and Geequa’s porcelain trade from 1740s to
1761.Source: Appendix A.

The trade pattern of Hong merchants was quite visible to us because of their

monopoly of principle commodities, such as tea and wool. 49 However, the

transformation from a small porcelain dealer to a Hong merchant was not visible

before the investigation of their trade activities. The combination of archival records

of their business and research from Hong merchant scholars made the transformation

explicit. The trade pattern of Sweetia and Geequa provided some of the most

important episodes of the mercantile in the 1760s. The examination of their businesses

gave good insights into Canton trade. This demonstrates that trade at Canton was

dynamic. It was not only reflected by the trade of certain commodities, but also by the

49 The value of the woollen trade transacted at canton was fairly small, rarely more than 100,000
taels, but the quantity of woollen brought to Canton increased in the 1770s.the value annually
reached up to 400,000 taels. See Chen, The Insolvency, pp.53-69.
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