Chinese Export Porcelain in Eighteenth-Century Tidewater Virginia

Chinese Export Porcelain in EighteenthCentury Tidewater Virginia JULIA B. CURTIS Chinese export porcelain constitutes one of the largest groups of ar­ tifacts recovered from archeological sites in Southeastern Virginia and is present on nearly all colonial sites so far dug in the James River basin. The artifact, the Chinese exportware shard, or whole vessel with a histo­ ry of Virginia ownership, is a physical manifestation of numerous facets of eighteenth-century society. Its presence in Virginia is eloquent testimony to a pattern of world trade as intricate as the complex intellectual net­ work of the Enlightenment. The presence of eighteenth-century Chinese porcelain shards at colonial sites in Virginia bespeaks the growing gentili­ ty of colonial society, a gentility evinced in the decoration of the coloni­ als’ houses and the growing popularity of such social ceremonies as tea and coffee drinking. The increasing use of Chinese porcelain, reflected in contemporary inventories and in Virginia’s archeological collections, at­ tests to the growing affluence of Virginians in the eighteenth-century. The quality of Chinese exportware that came to Virginia is a manifesta­ tion of Virginia’s status as a British colony and the status of even its wealth­ iest citizens as provincials. Conversely, however, the types of wares found on Virginia’s colonial sites were common to other international markets, such as those of Holland and Sweden. The survival of eighteenth-century inventories, the existence of hundreds of collections of eighteenth-century exportware in Europe and America, and the discovery of Dutch and Swed­ ish wrecks carrying Chinese export porcelain make it possible to analyze the thousands of exportware shards in Eastern Virginia’s archeological collections from a socio-economic as well as an art-historical perspective. 119 120 / CURTIS The presence of such large quantities of Chinese porcelain in Virginia has amazed both Chinese ceramicists and students of American social his­ tory. Its transmigration to colonial Virginia is directly related to the growth of trade between China and Europe and to the craze for oriental trade goods, or “china-mania,” which the China trade generated in Europe. The craze specifically for Chinese porcelain arose first in Holland, then, in the late seventeenth century, in England. The Virginians, as provincial citizens of the British Empire, adopted the enthusiasm only after it was firmly es­ tablished in London. A number of excellent works describe the origins of the China trade which ignited the European craze for Chinese porcelain,1 but the specific cause of the “china-mania” that affected colonial Virginia lies in the foun­ dation of the Dutch and English East India companies in the seventeenth century. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a group of English merchants a charter to trade with the East, and in 1602, the Dutch monarch char­ tered a similar company. Both companies were founded to supply Hol­ land and England respectively with spices at a profit to the company stockholders. The two companies were often competitors in the same Far Eastern markets and on numerous occasions fought each other for terri­ tory. In 1623, for example, the Dutch massacred all the natives and En­ glishmen at the British factory, or warehouse, at Amboyna in the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. While the principal goods in which the two East India companies traded remained the same for two hundred years, their importance to the trade changed markedly over those two centuries. Until the mid-seventeenth century, spices were the most valuable homebound cargo, but by 1700, Chinese and Indian textiles had displaced spices as the most valuable trade commodities. Although the Dutch began buy­ ing teas in bulk from the Chinese in 1637, according to T. Volker, tea and coffee became the most significant areas of growth in the eighteenthcentury , by which time spices had become a relatively minor commodity of trade. From 1600 to 1800, porcelain remained a relatively minor com­ modity when rated by value, although not necessarily by bulk. But whereas the Dutch brought porcelain to Holland in generally ever-increasing quan­ tities throughout the seventeenth century, the British, until the 1680s confined the bulk of their porcelain trade to the area east of the Persian Gulf.2 During much of the seventeenth century

Ancient history · Archaeology · Colonialism · Enlightenment · Political science · Popularity · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Law

• New Generation Cafe Culture and the Construction of Urban Bodies

  Open Access•Osman Özarslan, Olgu KARAN•İDEALKENT•2023

  Add to list

• Tea in God’s Light

  Jeanne A Ward, John P Mccarthy•Historical Archaeology•2009

  Add to list