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circulation during the eighteenth century and expanding through the nineteenth. The first

circuit was one in which material objects were central, a market in which people actually

bought and collected porcelain. The second was characterized by the demand and

consumption of porcelain’s visual vestiges; here, people did not necessarily buy porcelain

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objects, per se. Rather, they appreciated and participated in a visual culture of porcelain.
This two-pronged exchange trajectory flowed within and beyond East Asia and

subsequently appeared in a transmuted form in Europe in the eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries.

I. Early Images

Visual artworks that included representations of ceramics in their composition

appear as early as the mid-second century B.C. The earliest known paintings that portray

ceramics include the Mawangdui silk banner, which depicts an array of bronze, lacquer,

and pottery vessels at a funeral wake, and tomb wall murals dating to the Eastern Han

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(25 – 220 A.D.) A painting made of ink and color on silk, possibly dating to the tenth or

early twelfth century, depicts porcelain dishes, ewers, and bowls in an orderly table

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arrangement, and expresses the importance of ceramic objects in ordinary use. Another

notable example is the renowned painting of the Song dynasty emperor, attributed to

Emperor Huizong in the early twelfth century. In his Literary Gathering (Wenhui tu˖ᖭ

ྡ), porcelain objects in the form of dishes, bowls, and wine ewers populate a table scene

depicting the elegant consumption of food and drink by educated and refined men (Figure

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1). These paintings appeared on various media such as tomb wall art, silk canvases,

and textiles. Their visual composition included images of ceramics; however, the