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production of the three reigns of Kang[xi], Yong[zheng], and Qian[long], is able to make

the [porcelain] of the Ming dynasty pale in comparison, and overwhelm the [porcelain] of

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the five continents. Are they not worthy of putting on record?”
An awareness of the necessity of a rigorous study on porcelain on Chen’s part

cannot simply be attributed to a teleological march towards rational knowledge and its

complementary modern subjectivity, wherein an intellectual must achieve self-

consciousness. Of course, he later connected the feeling of social shame to a society that

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did not understand its own porcelain. Still, Chen’s motivations derived in part from the

times in which he lived and his access to a global circuit of information to which he

responded. In this sense, Tao Ya’s history shows how the production of knowledge

involved a network of cross-border conversations despite a movement towards

nationalizing porcelain. For instance, Chen Liu noted that “Westerners impute

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importance to Xiang Yuanbian’s Illustrated Catalogue. They have translated it.” Here,

Chen revealed his understanding of the international context in which knowledge about

porcelain developed during his lifetime. One of the major books on which he relied and

had previously studied before writing Tao Ya was a book entitled, Mirror to the World’s

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Porcelain (Shijie ci jian ˰ޢନᛠ). Clearly, a world context underpinned the book on

which Chen relied. In the 1906 preface, Chen again located his intellectual project in a

global context: “It is said that translators render huaci (Chinese porcelain) as zhina

(China), most likely a shorthand way of saying zhina ci (China porcelain). Therefore,

the people of the whole world all view zhina (China) as ci guo (nation/country of

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porcelain).” What is striking about Chen’s understanding of the intellectual

environment is not only his articulation of a worldwide scope, but also his