Page 286 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 8 Conclusion

marker of economic growth; Chinese porcelains, along with other Asian goods are

thought to have provided a significant impetus for economic growth in Europe of the

2
eighteenth century. Chinese porcelain, as a highly desirable good, has been

demonstrated as having contributed to the growth of a consumer society in Europe,

and indeed, had a direct impact on manufacturing and innovation in Britain, which

3
arguably contributed to the emergence of the industrial revolution. The importance

of porcelain has also been explored by global historians; as a material culture, Chinese

4
porcelain is used for studies of global connections. However, current scholarship has

failed to demonstrate the extent to which the Chinese production and global

consumption of Chinese porcelain experienced significant historical developments

and changes.

In order to fill this significant omission in present scholarship, my research started

with the historical context of enamels and enamelling techniques in porcelain

production in China of the eighteenth century, starting c.1720. In seeing the technique

2 A useful summary of this can be found in Stacey Pierson, ‘The Movement of Chinese Ceramics:
Appropriation in Global History’ Journal of World History, 23:1 (2012), pp.9-13.
3 See Maxine Berg, ‘Britain’s Asian Century: Porcelain and Global History in the Long
Eighteenth Century’, in Joel Mokyr and Laura Cruz (eds.) The Birth of Modern Europe: Culture
and Economy, 1400-1800. Essays in Honor of Jan de Vries (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp.133-157; ‘In
Pursuit of Luxury: Global Origins of British Consumer Goods’, Past and Present, 182 (2004),
pp.85-142; ‘Asian Luxuries and the Making of the European Consumer Revolution,’ in Maxine
Berg and E. Eger (eds.), Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desire and Delectable Goods
(London: Palgrave, 2003), pp.228-244; ‘From imitation to invention: creating commodities in
eighteenth century Britain’ Economic History Review, 55 (2002), pp.1-30; Robert Batchelor, ‘On
the Movement of Porcelains: Rethinking the Birth of Consumer Society as Interactions of
Exchange Networks, 1600-1750,’in J. Brewer and F. Trentmann (eds.), Consuming and Cultures,
Global Perspectives: Historical Trajectories, Transnational Exchanges (Oxford: Berg, 2006),
pp.95-121.
4 For a brief summary of this subject see Anne Gerritsen and Stephen McDowall, ‘Global China:
Material Culture and Connections in World History,’ in Journal of World History, 23, 1 (2012),
pp.3-8.
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