Page 236 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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(yan fu ଻၅), which in these recent days, I indulged to the utmost limit… Here is the

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humble achievement of twenty years of residence in Beijing.”
The visual experience was, as Chen himself admitted, a phenomenon of objects

that appeared for display in public circles only in recent years. Chen illuminated the

historical process by which he could view these objects. The recent years, which he

stipulated using the temporal terms of the lunar calendar ganzhi system, spanned 1894

and 1906, with 1895 and 1901 being the most important. Furthermore, he observed that

“after 1901, very large number of plates and dishes in five-color made their

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appearance.” Due to the availability of visual experience, Chen could then make

aesthetic conclusions: Daoguang period objects were bad compared to Yongzheng period

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porcelain. Of course, the history of the process by which these objects became

available for viewing is a familiar one fraught with human violence and filled with visual

brilliance. It is a history that included a combination of interrelated activities, including

the art market, looting, and war debts. As is well known, looting began on October 7,

1860 after the French and British sacked the Yuanming yuan imperial gardens. The

violence and thievery gave foreigners and residents in Beijing the opportunity to see

objects that had never been displayed for public viewing. For British collecting practices,

the availability of “imperial” objects signaled a shift from preferences for export

porcelain to those objects that were deemed authentic. The authentic was defined as the

porcelain now revealed to have been stored in the imperial grounds and produced for the

emperor, which was labeled “imperial taste” in 1875 and later, “Chinese taste” in the

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1940’s.