Page 20 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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cashbooks, inventory lists, notary deeds) are of Matheson in the early nineteenth century
great value in terms of finding new data and obscures a clear view of the official trading
constructing cultural biographies of (sets of) the goods. For this reason, Chinese export paintings
research corpus. On the other hand, written might be less visible in the primary archival
texts on the appraisal or value accruement of sources and thus quite out of sight of (art)
these paintings in biographies and memoirs by historians and other researchers.
Dutch traders in China or owners of these 4. By exploring nineteenth-century art
paintings in their afterlife are barely traceable, catalogues and auction lists, this research aims
if not impossible to find. Unfortunately, to gain new insights into the art market in the
inventories and contents lists say next to nothing Netherlands at that time. Here, I faced some
about the indigenous agency of producers and serious adversity. It soon became clear that 19
consumers (recipients), particular first meanings Chinese export paintings received much less
and uses of the paintings, or to the actual attention on paper than other export art from
choices individuals made and how they China, which more strongly marks the cultural
responded to them. Neither do they convey the exchange between East and West. Meticulous
joys and sorrows of possession, nor the private and quite tedious searches in the Royal Library
associations that gave these paintings their (KB), National Art History Documentation and
special meaning. With only these archival lists the National Archive to map the professional
of “decontexualised things that have lost their trade in Chinese export paintings made much
meanings” and without concrete ‘appraisal’ clear. 22 Back then, in the years 1600-1900, there
information, it would not have been possible was indeed Chinese porcelain and lacquer work
to make a statement about the extent of value specially produced for export to the West and
accruement to Chinese export paintings over offered at Dutch auctions. However, strangely,
time. 21 Fortunately, I found other ways to get there were hardly any paintings from China
this information. Personal contact with recorded. The study of 30 eighteenth-century
descendants of first owners and interpretation and early nineteenth-century Dutch inventories
of their treatment in the time between their and auction catalogues of Chinese objects, by
production and their current state (see 5) Jan van Campen, confirms this. 23 From this, we
brought more results. Analysis of the trade by can conclude that in the Netherlands at this time
the Netherlands Trading Society is also there was apparently no thriving domestic trade
somehow problematic, because, in fact, private in this genre of Chinese export art and that we
merchants were frequently in charge of the must see these kinds of paintings primarily as
purchase of export art from China (via collectibles for private (social or economic) use.
Indonesia). Moreover, illegal trade or smuggling 5. This research also draws on personal
by private traders and companies like Jardine conversations, phone calls and email

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21 The term “decontexualised things that have lost their meanings” is used in Dikötter, 2006,19. The term is
borrowed from T.H. Breen, from: ‘The meaning of things: Interpreting the consumer economy in the eighteenth
century’, in: John Brewer & Roy Porter, Consumption and the world of goods, London: Routledge, 1994, 251.
22 In January 2014 visits to the Netherlands Bureau for Art History (RKD) and the Royal Library The Hague (KB),
I examined in print (KB) as well as online (RKD) Frits Lugt, Répertoires des catalogues de ventes publiques
intéressant l'art ou la curiosité (Repertory of catalogues of public sale concerned with art or objets d’art) published
in 1938, 1953, 1964, and (posthumously) 1987. This source gives details of sales catalogues published during the years
1600–1925, held in public collections in Europe and North America.
- Catalogue de peintures et dessins chinois de bronzes, laques et porcelaines de la Chine, etc., 1828:
Rue Montmartre Paris (RKD, Lugt online)
- Catalogue d’objets d’arts et d’industrie chinoise. Provenant des voyages de M.M. Titzingh, Matuchi, etc., 1827:
Rue Saint-Marc Paris (RKD, Lugt online).
- Name lists of art catalogues (Hofstede-de Groot/Souillé), 1897 with notes by Hofstede de Groot, p. 523.
- Name lists of Dutch art catalogues, many with the same prices and names from 1731-1861, which comprise the
collection of Dr A. van der Willigen, 1873 (Librarians copy F.G. Waller, collection of art catalogues Van der Willigen
in Bibliotheque National Paris).
None of these overviews proved useful to my research.
23 Van Campen 2000-c, 47-81. According to Van Campen’s research, there were about 30 wealthy Dutch families
with about 1000 paintings (canvas, paper, glass, mirrors) in their collections. It is doubtful, however, if these were all
Chinese. Through his research it is known that there were wall hangings auctioned in 1754 and 1786, incidental rolls
in 1778, 1796, 1801, 1806, and loose leaves in 1754, 1778, 1786, 1794 (framed).