Page 143 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780
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CHAPTER 3 Enamelled Porcelain Consumption in Eighteenth-century China
Figure 3-7 Pair of enamelled dishes with painting pattern of flower brocade and figures.
Diameter: 13.5cm.
Photo Courtesy of National Palace Museum.
As has generally been established, during this period the social and economic
development in the Jiangnan region was very high. The connections between
Jingdezhen and other Jiangnan cities such as Suzhou, Yangzhou, Nanjing and
Hangzhou were increasingly close as a result of the growing mobility of materials,
merchants and artisans. These cities became the main distribution centres of
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decorative arts. We see this, for example, in the writings of a contemporary writer
who recorded the history of Yangzhou and his contemporaries in the city. Li Dou 李
斗 (?-1817) has left a detailed description of the gathering of these displayed works
of art, including various kinds of lacquer, inlaid furniture, large-scale jade carvings
and painted enamels.
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60 Susan Naquin and Evelyn S. Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1987), p.70.
61 Li Dou, Yangzhou huafang lu [Chronicle of the painted barques of Yangzhou],
(Yangzhou,1984), pp.195-200. Work on Yangzhou in the Qing period, see Antonia Finnane,
Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550-1850 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University
Asia Center, 2004).
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