Enchanting Expeditions: Chinese Trade Porcelains across the Globe

At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese explorers sailed along the newly discovered route past the Cape of Good Hope to reach the East African coast for the first time, and thereupon began the exploration of sea routes to the Orient.

Mid-Ming dynasty onwards, strong purchasing power of the domestic market brought porcelain production to its prime in kiln centres nationwide. With the arrival of foreign merchants from Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands etc. and the opening of trading routes, demand and potential profit for porcelain trade escalated, causing the international distribution of porcelain from various kiln sites. 

The raw material and production technology of Chinese porcelain had remained a secret to foreigners for a long period of time, even when great efforts had been made to make secret enquires or records about porcelain manufacture. The French Jesuit Père Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles sent the information to Europe with material samples in early 18th century. This section will introduce the manufacture and transport of porcelain by export paintings on loan from the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

An official has just arrived with his retinue at Raozhou Prefecture, in which one could find Fuliang County, where the porcelain town of Jingdezhen was located. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, orders of porcelain for use at the Royal Court and domestic and overseas market were all sent to Jingdezhen through Raozhou Prefecture.

A porcelain laden ship is shooting the rapids. A storm is raging, and two boatmen are needed to hold the rudder while two others are steering the ship away from the rocks with long poles. The merchant watches anxiously from inside the cabin. These ships would sail along the Chang River to enter Poyang Lake, and then sail southward along Gan River until arriving at Nan’an Prefecture (today’s Dayu county) in southern Jiangxi.

Jiangxi province borders Guangdong along Dayu Mountains. After sailing to Nan’an Prefecture in Jiangxi, the porcelain is collected from the ships and carried by porters over the mountain pass to reach Nanxiong Prefecture in Guangdong, where it is reloaded into boats and shipped along Pearl River System to arrive at Guangzhou (then known as Canton).

Cantonese artisans are decorating plain white porcelain from Jingdezhen with overglaze enamels. During the middle Qing period, these “Canton enamelled ware” (“Guang cai”) featuring a colourful palette and often decorated with gold became popular. Foreign merchants active in Guangzhou were able to directly commission special decorations for their European customers.

Here, European traders are approaching a porcelain shop in Guangzhou, probably to purchase porcelain. Two attendants are each holding a large sack which we can surmise, might be filled with silver coins.

Porcelain products arrived at southeast coastal ports from various kiln centres overland and by waterways and embarked on their global journey. Less fortunate ships wrecked and consigned to the bottom of the ocean, until discovery and salvage opened the “time-capsule” to reveal the primary porcelain types traded to different markets at different periods. This section features recovered porcelains from 7 shipwrecks, 3 of them will be introduced in this online exhibition.

Chinese porcelain became a global commodity from the 17th century onwards, including in the New World of the Americas and contributed to the development of Chinoiserie, which, to varying degrees, altered the way of life and aesthetic tastes of the world.

Early 18th century, after the first European hard-paste porcelain was created in Meissen, Germany, ceramic factories across Europe enthusiastically engaged in the imitation of various Chinese porcelain products such as zisha tea-ware from Yixing, porcelain with underglaze blue or overglaze polychrome enamels from Jingdezhen, and white porcelain from Dehua.