Page 267 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 7 Porcelain Dealers and their Role in Trade

bears patterns numbered 17, 18, 19 and 20. The numbered patterns indicate that the

plates belonged to one series, showing the design.

Figure 7-7 Pattern plate, one of a series, porcelain painted in enamel colours and gilded.

'Syngchong FM' mark, made in China (Jingdezhen), painted in Guangzhou, Qing dynasty, c.
1790.
Photo Courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, C.121-1923.

The plate of Figure 7-7 is also marked with the name Syngchong, a main porcelain

dealer of the period. Records from the VOC show that Syngchong traded small

amounts of porcelain in 1765 and remained in the porcelain trade with the DAC and

23
VOC. This merchant only started to trade with the EEIC in the 1780s when he

24
became one of the main suppliers. Sample plates bearing the merchant’s shop mark
must have played a role in promoting his reputation. He was regarded by the American

trader Hezekiah B.Pierrepont in 1796 as selling ‘the most respectable China ware on

25
porcelain trade,’ A decade later, Syngchong was regarded by the American as ‘the

23 Van Dyke, Success and Failure, p.154.
24 Jörg, the Dutch China trade, p.119.
25 Jean McClure Mudge, Chinese export porcelain for the American Trade, 1785-1835 (Newark,
1981), p.56.
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