Page 274 - 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

porcelain dealers and the EEIC, but there is no contract written in Chinese language,

46
as Paul A. Van Dyke found in other sources. (Figure 7-8)

Van Dyke has shown that these contracts demonstrate a general trade in Canton

with a focus on Hong merchants. In contrast to his studies, I have sought networks

between Chinese dealers and foreign traders. This sees porcelain dealers as a network

that shares common interests within a commercial context. In doing so, an internal

mechanism may be revealed, and the role of this network in the trade can be

demonstrated.

Figure 7-8 Receipt dated 6 December 1760, from Lisjoncon.
This transaction was made through Yuanquan Hang.The Hague, VOC 4387, p.736.
Source: Paul A. Van Dyke, Merchants of Canton and Macao: Success and Failure in

Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016).
Plate 07.03.

46 The records of Swedish East India Company and the Danish East India Company have some
contracts with dealers’ Chinese names and their stamps. However, based on the volumes I have
used of the EEIC records, I have found none. Paul A. Van Dyke has suggested that there might be
other volumes of the EEIC containing records in Chinese language. (Email conversations with
Paul A. Van Dyke, 11 June 2016).
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