Page 11 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

Reviewing the Situation

CHINESE'EXPORT'SILVER:'A'COMPLEX'COMPOSITE'2'A'HYBRID'
'

With my research now well into its 5th year, not only has so much additional information
been amassed but it has dramatically changed my understanding of the complexities that
make up the silver category we have come to know as Chinese Export Silver. “Familiarity
breeds contempt” is a well-used proverb but in the context of my own familiarity with
Chinese Export Silver nothing could be further from the truth - it has allowed me to have a
more intuitive understanding of its complexities.

It will be clear to anyone perusing the catalogued entries in my latest book that the
collective Chinese Export Silver repertoire was a highly diverse one; for this reason the
book opens with the word:

DIVERSITY

Only when one sees the vast array of the singularity each silversmith manifested can one
realise that this silver category is by far the most multifarious that has ever existed.
Spending most of my waking day researching, writing or talking about Chinese history - a
sinologist, if you will - I am quite possibly the first person to say out loud that anything
Chinese by default has to be complex. That in no way is intended to be derogatory; on the
contrary, it is intended as a compliment to one of the oldest civilisations on earth.

My research has highlighted that the perception, appreciation and understanding of
Chinese Export Silver is quite different in the West to that in China. All the preceding
historical research into this silver category failed to consider that a Western mindset might
interpret Chinese culture differently to how the Chinese themselves perceive it; they are
two totally different mindsets, after all. This failure [and I have been equally to blame at
times] and the realisation that a failure has occurred concerns me; it displays what could
be construed as a remnant of that all too ugly colonialist mindset that many Westerners
had towards anything that was regarded as alien culture. ‘Alien’ does not have a default
meaning of being inferior; it is simply ‘other’ and often it is ‘superior’.

So a reassessment of this silver category is necessary because the prevalent perception
of it is, in the main, wrong from both the Western and the Chinese points of view.

One of the most noticeable differences between how China and the West approaches
Chinese Export Silver has to be in how identification is established. For over 50 years
Western experts have almost exclusively focused on the English silver marks, while any
Chinese marks are largely ignored or simply referred to as being “Chinese character
marks”. For over 50 years, Western descriptions refer to the English marks as being those
of the “maker”. Almost without exception, the English mark will refer to the name of the
retail silversmith, in most cases not an actual person’s name but a manufactured trading
name intended to be auspicious rather than informative.