Page 290 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 8 Conclusion

from the EEIC as well as the visual materials may also further the possibility for

research on Dehua porcelain and its trade. Together with my current research, a

distribution map could be produced of different types of porcelain and production

workshops for the export market near Canton, which could shed new light on the

Chinese export trade and the socio-economic history of eighteenth-century China.

It is hoped that future investigation of Chinese enamelled porcelain may be

conducted in a scientific laboratory. A scientific examination of their enamel colours

may help us to identify their site where the pieces were made. In doing so, museum

curators would be able to identify their collection of enamelled porcelain as belonging

to a more concrete time period. Until now, in contrast to armorial enamelled porcelain

dated by coats of arms, the large amount of enamelled porcelain has not yet been dated

with any great precision.

Whether guilds in Jingdezhen were associated with specialization of the kilns

deserves a further investigation. As Jörg has suggested that the reason famille verte

porcelain were lack of European-style decoration was the division of work at kilns

8
and different part of commercial networks. Such insight can be also linked with the
discussion of the trade networks in Jingdezhen in this thesis.

A future comparative study of China’s enamelled porcelain with the production

of European manufactures is also potentially fruitful. In particular, it is important to

clarify whether there were exchanges in techniques and designs.

Overall, this thesis has shed light on the study of Chinese porcelain and the

Chinese porcelain trade. It is hoped that this research will contribute to fostering a

renewed way of looking at Chinese exported goods (tea, silk, porcelain) that involves

8 Christiaan J.A. Jörg, Famille Verte Chinese Porcelain in Green Enamels (Groninger Museum,
2011), p.11.
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