Page 133 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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paintings,” as Winnie Wong argues in her
dissertation After the copy: Creativity, originality
and the labor of appropriation, Dafen Village,
Shenzhen, China (1989-2010). 61 Wong explains
that these images served not simply as a body
of seemingly empirical representations, but also
as a means of communication and translation
amongst linguistically limited populations.
The representational and social function of a
Chinese export harbour view might, therefore,
be thought of as its use value. Much of this
value lies in its representational subject
matter.
Regardless of the technical quality or pictorial
content, possession of these paintings also
conferred a special status on their owners. To
those who were in a position to buy an export
painting, the picture would commemorate an
arduous sea journey to Asia, a major
commercial enterprise with immense rewards
and contact with the great empire of China,
either personally or through relatives who were
there. Ownership of a Chinese export painting
indicated that you had been in contact, to some
extent, with fascinating and highly esteemed
China, a place that many people at that time
viewed as, to quote Conner, “a source of
limitless wealth.” 62 For a Western merchant,
there was no better metaphor for his China
voyage than a harbour view or a portrait of the
pre-eminent sailing carrier of his lucrative
commodities. In this sense, recalling the theories
of Graeber and Van Binsbergen on the notion
that things, in casu paintings, are used to
Figs. 4.34.a., b. and c. these locations, differently dated between circa confirm identities, and that the relation between
Carl Gustav Ekeberg, 1790 and 1850. The structure of the Canton commodities and the marking of identities is
1773, engravings by trading system was arranged in such a way that generally accepted, (as treated in Chapter 2),
Olof Jacobsson Årre these places were important stops for all foreign these paintings functioned as identity-reinforcing
(1731-1809), Canton, vessels. 60 objects. 63 As such, they were significant in the
Whampoa and Bocca Paintings of ports and anchorages frequented context of trading adventures. It goes without
Tigris, 26.7 x 41.9 cm. by Western ships can be viewed as saying that, once back home, the proud and tall
representations of places where the first buyers tales told, based on a Chinese harbour view, may
had lived or had done business for years. well have inspired future and potential seafarers.
However, to describe such paintings merely as In the nineteenth century, practically every
souvenirs does not do justice either to their sea trader who visited Canton returned home
quality, which was often high, or to the context with a painting of a port city. By 1849, while
in which they were acquired. These paintings visiting the painting studios of Lamqua, Lavollée
played an important role in revealing ‘China found:
stories’ to their families at home. Indeed, they
exert a cultural claim to represent ‘reality’. [d]ans la partie la mieux éclairee de la boutique
Fig. 4.37. Hong bowl “A certain measure of visual truth-value was de Lam-qua, quelques jeune Chinois peignaient
with a view of the crucial to the desirability of Canton trade sur toile et à l’huile des vues de Macao et de
English and Dutch
factories in Canton, ---
anonymous, porcelain, 60 Van Dyke 2007, 19-33.
c. 1769, Salem (MA), 61 Wong 2010, 141.
Peabody Essex 62 Conner 1996, 9.
Museum, inv.no. 81404. 63 Graeber 2001, 79-81. Van Binsbergen 2005, 23, 30, 40.