Page 97 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

European influence
Chinese woven silk cloths and finished silk products, furnishing items in particular,
begin to appear in larger quantities in inventories taken from 1614 onwards. These
silks include taffetas, velvets, damasks in various colours, and cushions and other items on Chinese Silk [2.3]
embroidered with birds, beasts and flowers.
The English continued with their indirect trade with China for years. Later in
the eighteenth century trade was to be confined to the port cities of London and
Canton. The silk trade was devised as a re-export enterprise in order to protect British
manufacturers. According to British navigation laws and prohibition acts, all silk piece
goods imported into London from Asia were to be re-exported to continental Europe,
the West Indies, and the English colonies in the New World. 349

The trade in silk to Europe and the New World was not limited to raw silk, silk woven
cloths and silk finished products made for both the Chinese domestic and export
markets. By the mid-sixteenth century, it also included a variety of silks made to order
in China for use in both religious and secular contexts in Europe, and the colonies in
the New World and Asia. Material evidence is provided by a small number of extant
woven silk cloths and finished silk products housed in public and private collections,
which combine traditional Chinese weaving, embroidery or painting techniques and
motifs, with European motifs. These silks, made specially for both the Portuguese and
Spanish markets in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, give testimony of
the ability of the Chinese silk producers to adapt to the specific requirements of their
new European clientele. No silks from this period showing any signs of having been
made to order in China for the Dutch or English markets were found during the
present research.

Silk made to order for the Iberian market (2.3.1)
Portuguese textual sources suggest that woven silk cloths began to be made in China
350 The originat text in Portuguese reads: ‘Huma cousa as special orders for the Portuguese shortly after the establishment of Macao in 1557.
lhe direy dos chinas muito gracyosa contrarão-lhe
la od portugueses as proçissões que qua fazião em The earliest orders may have been intended for use in Catholic religious contexts in
Goa e a maneyra de nosso culto divino e ymagens
ells como são homens abilissymos determinarão, Asia. The Portuguese Jesuit Luís Fróis (1532–1597) in a letter to his brothers in Lisbon
de não perder a ocasião de ganharem que he quasi referring to the Jesuit festivities held from 1559 to 1560 at the Colégio de São Paulo
seu ultimo fin pretenderão em tudo seu enteresse’.
Biblioteca da Ajuda, Jesuítas na Ásia, 49–IV–50, doc. Velho in Goa, writes ‘Something I will tell you very humorous about the Chinese [after]
133, fl. 400. Cited in Maria João Pacheco Ferreira,
‘Entre a vivência religiosa cultural e académica. A they were informed of the Portuguese processions in Goa and the way we worship
presence de têxteis chineses nas festas do colégio God using images, as they are skilled men decided, not to loose the opportunity to
de São Paulo de Goa em meados do século XVI’,
349 Leanna Lee-Whitman, ‘The Silk Trade. Chinese Silks Revista de Facultade de Letras – Ciências e Técnicas profit, which is their main interest’. The Colégio de São Paulo was the first Jesuit
350
and the British East India Company’, Winterthur do Património, Porto, Vol. VII–VIII, 2008–2009, p.
Portfolio, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), p. 21. 200; and Pacheco Ferreira, 2013, p. 49. establishment in Asia (built between 1541 and 1578), and thus it required a supply

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