Page 282 - 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

Approaching porcelain dealers as a network reveals an invisible link, which leads

us to local manufacture at Canton. The monograph on Jingdezhen porcelain

production History of Jingdezhen Pottery and Porcelain mentioned:

Zhaoqing [肇 庆 ], has imitated enamelled copper ware from foreign

countries, usually in the shape of censer, vases, saucers, dishes, bowls,

plates and boxes. Although the colour is quite brilliant, it is in poor taste,

and not as delicate as porcelain. However, the design was copied by Tang

Ying [唐英, the supervisor of the Imperial Kiln at Jingdezhen from 1728

to 1758]. Porcelains made under the supervision of Tang Ying are much

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more delicate than those from Zhaoqing.

Over the discussion of Guangzhao huiguan at Jingdezhen, it is interesting to find

that Guangzhou porcelain dealers and Zhaoqing dealers shared a huiguan. The record

from Records of Jingdezhen Ceramics proves that Zhaoqing was a place of enamelled

copperware, and the design of their enamelled copperwares was copied in Jingdezhen.

Why would dealers from copperware manufacture sites come to porcelain

manufactures to buy porcelain?

One possible answer to this question is likely to be that they wanted to bring blank

porcelain back and enamel them with their own ovens. Recent research has

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demonstrated the similarities of enamelled copperwares and enamelled porcelain.

Jorge Welsh shows that the oven for firing enamelled copperwares and enamelled

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porcelain was similar. Because of the lack of historical evidence, we cannot have a

detailed analysis of the commercial network between Guangzhou and Zhaoqing and

58 Ibid., p.112.
59 Luisa Vinhais and Jorge Welsh (eds.), China of all Colours: Painted Enamels on Copper
(London: Jorge Welsh Research and Publishing, 2015), pp.30-36.
60 Vinhais and Welsh, China of all Colours, p.29.
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