Page 42 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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circulated, but retained and transmitted from cultural and social factors. My research Fig. 2.0. View of the
one generation to another. As Mike Rowlands originated from the idea that, to varying degrees, waterfront of Canton,
points out in his ‘Value and the cultural the research material considered here is anonymous, oil on
transmission of things’ in Commodification: frequently found in the commodity phase, the canvas, 1845-1855,
Things, Agency, and Identities (The Social Life paintings fit the requirements of commodity 87.5 x 200 cm,
of Things Revisited), “they are ‘objects in social candidacy and they often appear, at least when Museum Volkenkunde/
motion’, without being commodities.” 19 This they circulate in the global art market, in a Nationaal Museum van
research also asks whether, notwithstanding commodity context. Wereldculturen,
their de-commodified existence, Chinese export Taking the Leembruggen painting as an inv.no. RV-B3-1.
paintings in the Netherlands should be revived example to explain how this commodification
and brought back into the commodity chain, in process works, I argue that this painting is a
order to circulate again and, in some way, typical product of the vibrant commodity
promote cultural autonomy (or patriotism?) and industry, fully at work in the nineteenth century
identity in the country where they initially arose. in South Chinese port cities, like Canton and
Arjun Appadurai writes in the introduction Macao. This iconic harbour view can be taken
of his seminal study The Social Life of Things, as a clear example of being in a true commodity
“It is only through the analysis of the total phase at the time of its production. Almost
trajectories that we can interpret the human certainly, at that time, this painting was
transactions and calculations that enliven exchanged for something else with a comparable
things.” 20 Following Appadurai’s idea of a value (money, service, another good). The mass
commodity being an object in a certain situation, produced scene of this particular painting, which
which can be compared to other objects, we refers to the high status of the historical China
must focus on the moment when the trade and its exponants, serves as an ‘ultimate
exchangeability (past, present, or future) of an commodity’ throughout its social life. Despite
object (for other objects) becomes its relevant the current status of this painting, i.e. that it is
feature. Furthermore, Appadurai argues that the not a typical commodity, because it lies ‘frozen’
commodity situation can be split into three in a museum depot, it keeps its commodity
aspects of ‘commodity-hood’: the commodity candidacy until today. After all, this family
phase, the commodity candidacy and the heirloom can easily be brought back into
commodity context. 21 By explaining these three circulation again, either by displaying it at the
aspects, it becomes clear that commodification museum (physically or virtually), or by putting it
acts at the complex intersection of temporal, up for auction. This latter action, in my opinion,

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19 Rowlands 2005, 267.
20 Appadurai 1986, 5.
21 Ibid., 13-16.