Page 54 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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their variable conservation state, for the story of its origins, exchange and use by the
differences in the motives of private individuals people who ascribed value to it – we notice a
to either keep their paintings, put them up for changing use value over time. Objects never have
auction or bequeath them to a venerable place lives of their own, but are granted lives by their
like a museum? users. Viewed from this perspective, I argue that
objects always have agency, which, in turn,
Actants and users as producers makes people act in one way or another. The
We can say that Chinese export paintings lives of objects can often diverge considerably
functioned as part of a ‘meaningful whole’ in from the intentions of their producers. New
Dutch society at the time of the historical China users, as Ter Keurs states, “may challenge old
trade in the nineteenth century. But, in reference interpretations and derive new meanings from 53
to the high value put upon them by the higher objects.” 59 In this case, consumers can also be
levels of society at that time, it was apparently seen as producers. Yet, users (consumers)
difficult for these paintings to keep this status in generate meanings and produce interpretations
the Dutch context. The emergence of a new for the objects they appropriate. 60 This concept
zeitgeist over time, means that most of these follows the idea of Dikötter, who states that
paintings – apparently lacking contemporary “consumption is appropriation, in other words a
relevance and importance – have ceased to be social activity by which objects produced by
significant; or, at least, their function has others become one’s own by subjecting them to
changed to some (major) extent. Here, it is personal meanings and differential uses.” 61 The
important to focus on the meanings derived cultural biography and social life of Chinese
from these artworks. For the meanings derived export paintings is consituted depending on the
from the paintings by their owners often differ value accruement – or, value dwindle – by
from those previously identified. The intentions individuals or insitutional powers.
of the first documented users of the paintings In Ter Keurs’ model, the painting as an object
may become a burden due to changing is the centrepiece and it functions simultaneously
circumstances and changing opinions. Having as a destination and a starting point. Again, it is
entered a museum, their physical presence can important to ask not what specific paintings
sometimes cause ‘problems’ for the museum mean, but rather what a painting as actant did in
management by raising questions about ways the process of meaning construction in different
the collections are stored or put on display, cultural contexts. Taken as a material object
conducting academic research on them, restoring existing on the crossroads between time and
the paintings, the production of exhibitions, place, a Chinese export painting may appear in
making the collections digitally accessible, etc. the same form later in time. At the very moment
Decisions about these kinds of issues are a new owner observes it, the painting enters a
influenced by practical, social, political and new phase of the interpreting process.
financial matters and also by marketing Condensation and evaporation, as Ter Keurs
considerations. I fully agree with Ter Keurs, argues, are “continuing, irreversible processes in
however, that the way in which the collection which both the meanings (non-material) and the
is the basis for shaping a museum’s activity is, objects (material) can change.” 62 To reiterate
“not always clearly dictated by the collection.” 58 Ter Keurs, “the construction of meaning and the
Given their unfamiliarity, it seems that some change of meaning, are processes that shift from
Dutch collections of Chinese export paintings idea to matter and from matter to idea.” 63 The
have become ‘a burden’ in the course of time. decision, for example, about whether to restore
Although a documented first owner might or not restore a little-known group of Chinese
have attributed intrinsically personal value to export paintings is often preceded by a long
a painting in the first phase of its social life, by opinion-forming process, in which both their
analysing its cultural biography – that is, the historic meaning and their significance for future

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58 Ter Keurs 2006, 2.
59 Ibid., 59.
60 Dikötter 2006, 11. In his book Exotic Commodities (also published as Things Modern in 2007) Dikötter uses the
terms ‘user’ and ‘consumer’ to describe individuals as distinct from the social spaces where transactions take place;
namely, the market, contrary to common usage in economic theory.
61 Ter Keurs 2006, 59.
62 Ibid., 60.
63 Ibid.