Page 269 - 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

28
objects remains to date and their owners’ genealogical connections have been found.

The private trade of the EEIC has been long discussed, and has proved to be an

29
important factor to the economy in the eighteenth-century Britain. Yet the private

trade of enamelled armorial services has not been recognised by economic historians.

Company 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s 1800s
EEIC 150 236 375 578 441 318 411 495 146

Spain 2 2 2 5 15 13 5 10 6
Dutch 0 85 92 65 35 29 31 0 16

Total 152 323 469 648 491 360 447 505 168

Table 5 The account of special order of enamelled porcelain. (Set of services).
Source: Jochem Kroes, Chinese Armorial Porcelain for the Dutch Market (Zwolle:
Waanders, 2007), p.14.
Rocío Díaz, Chinese Armorial Porcelain for Spain (London and Lisbon: Jorge Welsh

Books, 2010)
David S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, Vol.2 (Heirloom & Howard Limited, 2003)

Table 5 shows the number of enamelled armorial porcelains imported by the

Dutch, Spanish, and the EEIC of the eighteenth century. The number continued to

increase and reached its peak during the 1750s and 1760s. It has to be noted that all

these services were ordered to be decorated in enamel colours with special arms.

30
Armorial wares appeared to cost at least five times as much as ordinary porcelain,

28 For example, David Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader (London,1994); David Howard,
Chinese Armorial Porcelain, 2 volumes (London, 1974 and 1994); Geoffrey A. Godden, Oriental
Export Market Porcelain and Its Influence on European Wares (London and New York:
Granada,1979); Jochem Kroes, Chinese Armorial Porcelain for the Dutch Market (Zwolle:
Waanders, 2007).
29 Earl H. Pritchart, ‘Private Trade between England and China in the Eighteenth Century (1680-
1833)’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Aug., 1957),
pp.108-137.
30 Anthony Du Boulay, Christie’s Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics (Oxford: Phaidon /
Christie's,1984), pp.256-257.
253