Page 170 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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Chapter 5 18-10-2016 15:46 Pagina 41

Cultural biographies

Value matters and material complex issues

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5.1. consumed) by individual viewers. Instead, the
Introduction paintings also accrue value through the social
Chinese export paintings had a strong appeal to processes of accumulation, possession,
foreign powers active in the late eighteenth and circulation and exchange. Appropriation enabled
mid-nineteenth centuries. This is evident in them to become extensions of the owner’s self.
museums and private collections around the Even today, these paintings gain respect, and not
world today. As explained in Chapter 4, Dutch only because of their financial value. Proud,
public collections comprising Chinese paintings twenty-first-century owners of such paintings are
include a substantial number of works still able to recount the manifold stories of their
2
representing maritime topics, such as harbour ancestors’ adventures in ‘the East’. By studying
views and ship portraits. These export products the trajectories travelled by these paintings, from
were popular and this was clearly a demand that their production place to the Dutch museum
1
was supplied at every Chinese port. Harbour storeroom, we will discover that the issue of
views, like those of Macao, Bocca Tigris, class (status) is difficult to ignore. For Made for
Whampoa and Canton, are still signifiers of the Trade, however, I did not go into this ‘class-
China trade in our time. Understandably, they topic’ any deeper than to ascertain that it is an
meant something special to those Westerners issue worthy of a separate study. It is not clear
who were in China because of maritime trade. whether a relationship can be established
This important category of Chinese export between the possession of oil paintings by a
paintings must be analysed not just as simple small, higher (elite) class and the ownership of
representations, but also as commodities whose watercolours by a large middle class in nineteenth-
value and meaning were accrued through century Dutch society. Anyone who had these
specific and economically significant forms of kinds of paintings in their possession was well
exchange. Closer examination reveals that off; indeed, these artworks from ‘the East’ were
waterfronts and ports – essential places in the generally considered to be luxury goods.
transcontinental movement of commodities – This chapter focuses on the value accruement
were significant and compelling in different and dwindle of commodities and cultural
ways. In some cases, we can trace the journeys biographies of Chinese export paintings. It will
of these artworks and detect their impact on touch upon various topics related to the research
patterns of consumption. Before exploring possibilities for studying trajectories of harbour
relevant theories with which to study these views brought back from China by Dutch
trajectories, it is important to ventilate thoughts private merchant-entrepreneurs in the era of
about the use value or utility of paintings with historical China trade. Treating these works as
this subject matter, brought back as important transcultural art works with a commodity aspect
statements of the highly complex commercial and as active players in the networks that
relations between Chinese, European and North connect them to human practices and current
American traders. ideas and concepts, requires us to follow the life
When we consider their various social func- story of the paintings themselves, for their
tions (commemorative, identity-reinforcement), meaning and use value are inscribed in their
it becomes clear that their value is not limited to forms, their uses and their trajectories. By
the worth they accrue as representations seen (or mapping a painting’s cultural biography, as

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1 Ayers 1980.
2 I was given this impression by a number of proud owners, who I was able to talk to during the research period.