Page 46 - Chinese Export Porcelain Art, MET MUSEUM 2003

elaborate known today is a bowl formerly grew steadily after 1784, and by 1810 the
owned by Stevens (fig. 47). It is a testament United States had assumed a position sec-
to the Chinese decorators' abilities to repli- ond only to Great Britain in trade with China,
cate in minute detail every line of a Western surpassing France, Holland, Denmark,
engraving without introducing personal Sweden, Spain, and Austria.
interpretation. Finely decorated pieces such Merchants in the American trade with
as this are indicative of the high quality of China influenced the taste for imported
porcelains entering the American market goods, not only for porcelains and silver
during the early years of this country's but for more ephemeral products such as
direct trade with China. textiles and tea, which have received com-
Boosting international commerce and paratively little attention from scholars. The

increasing financial rewards were the primary northern and mid-Atlantic states largely
motivations for doing business in China, dominated this trade, and it is not surpris-
and in the years following 1784, the business ing that the majority of surviving porcelains

brought great prosperity to American ship- with solid American provenances are asso-
builders, traders, and merchants. This was ciated with families directly or indirectly
due in large part to the fact that government- involved in it-merchants, traders, ship-
sponsored organizations, such as the Dutch builders, and carpenters-from the port
and British East India Companies, no longer cities of Boston, Salem, Providence,
held a monopoly in China; the country was New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore
open to private enterprise. The exchange (figs. 48, 50, 51).

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