Page 44 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

largely ignored. On the other hand, scholarship on the study of global connections of

Chinese porcelain and its role in world history often sees Chinese porcelain as an

assemblage of commodities produced by China and makes no distinctions between

different types of Chinese porcelain, which in reality are characterised by very

different materials, technologies, producers and consumers. However, current

scholarship has ignored the fact that by applying different materials and techniques,

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the product will be different, and so will the consumers. Additionally, we cannot
conclude that China responded to new materials such as cobalt-blue and enamels in

the same way or that the markets responded to blue-and-white and enamelled

porcelain in the same way. Moreover, by reinforcing the idea of a global connection

of Chinese porcelain, the original place of porcelain — China — was neglected. China

was not isolated; rather, it actively developed new materials and technologies for the

porcelain production as well as responding to the markets.

1.4. Sources

This research is based on various primary resources including historical records, and

contemporary visual materials. In the next section, I will explain the primary sources

I have used for this thesis.

61 The most recent one is Finlay, The Pilgrim Art.
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