Page 58 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

1.4.4. Visual Representations

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a series of paintings depicting the

manufacture and the trade of Chinese porcelain enjoyed widespread attention through

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export channels. These paintings were primarily watercolours or drawings in ink on

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Chinese paper, and were viewed as a type of another ‘Chinese export art’.
Watercolours were very popular because of their low price and small size; they served

in many respects as the postcards of the time. They were generally painted in

workshops, and there is some evidence of mass production techniques. In subject

matter, there is some overlap with oil paintings, but watercolours of ‘daily life’ are

especially numerous. Such paintings depict store fronts, the production of tea,

porcelain and silk (all important export items), different types of individuals, and

interior scenes. Scholars have examined the painting techniques, the style and the

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paper, as well as the colours materials. Until recently, Chinese export paintings have

been viewed as visual sources to illustrate Chinese export trade and Chinese port city

Canton. Jiang Yinghe 江滢河, Susan Schopp, Lau Fung Ha, Paul A. Van Dyke and

93 For a brief description of these paintings, see Ellen Huang, ‘From the Imperial court to the
international art market: Jingdezhen porcelain production as global visual culture’ in Journal of
World History, 23, 1(2012), pp.115-145.
94 The literature on Chinese export paintings is extensive and written mostly by connoisseurs and
museum curators. Carl L. Crossman, The China Trade: Export Paintings, Furniture, Silver &
Other Objects (Princeton: Pyne Press, 1972); Margaret Jourdain and Jenyns R.Soame, Chinese
Export Art in the eighteenth century (Feltham: Spring Books, 1967); Craig Clunas, Chinese Export
Watercolours (London, 1984); Hong Kong Museum of Art, Late Qing China Trade Paintings
(Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1982).
95 For the most recent example, see the project ‘Culture and Trade through the Prism of
Technical Art History a study of Chinese export paintings’ from Nottingham Trent University’,
the website of this project:
http://www4.ntu.ac.uk/apps/research/groups/9/home.aspx/project/144043/overview/culture_and
_trade_through_the_prism_of_technical_art_history_-_a_study_of_c. See also, Kate Bailey, ‘A
note on Prussian blue in nineteenth-century Canton’ Studies in Conservation, 57, 2(2012),
pp.116-121.
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