When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding i... more When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. First, I would like to express my gratitude to supervisor Dr Stacey Pierson, for her time and intellectual interest in this subject, for sharing her scholarly expertise, scrutinising my writing and ensuring the most rigorous of approaches to my PhD. Dr Louise Tythacott also provided valuable encouragement and guidance, helping to bring early thoughts to fruition. Colleagues past and present at the V&A and British Museum facilitated both access to the collections and the archives. I am particularly grateful to Dr Yu Ping Luk, Jessica Harrison-Hall and V&A Archivist, Nicholas Smith who were open and generous with their time and experience. I also thank former V&A curator Michael Archer and British Museum historian, Marjory Caygill for their recollections of earlier museum history.
This case study of the political agency of European style art objects at the eighteenthcentury Ch... more This case study of the political agency of European style art objects at the eighteenthcentury Chinese court begins with a small, finely enameled porcelain flask; a Chinese object that entered the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London in 1951 as part of the Basil Ionides Bequest of Chinese export porcelain (figs. 1a, 1b). Just like other articles in the bequest, the flask is decorated in European style-a common feature of Chinese porcelain manufactured to the specifications of wealthy Europeans as part of the lucrative private trade in goods from Asia1-with idyllic scenes of young European women and children. The manner of their depiction, paying careful attention to light and shade through the folds of their clothing and flesh tones on their bare arms and neck, and attempts toward spatial recession all conform to established and recognizable European painting conventions. However, on further examination, all is not as it might seem: the rocks seen here more closely resemble those depicted in traditional Chinese brush painting and the principal figures are staged against a blank white canvas and sit precariously close to the pictorial space-the curvature of the flask accentuates the visual allusion, like the lens of an eyeglass or optical device. Furthermore, how are these scenes framed? The decorative border pattern is unfamiliar and difficult to decode: is it too made of porcelain or some other rare material? In the shape of the vessel, we are finally on firmer ground. Flasks of this form had been popular in China for centuries, and as such this was a well-established point of reference, denoting cultural continuity and allusions to the "antique" in Qing dynasty China (1644-1911) when this object was made. The shape of this vessel therefore suggests a Chinese recipient rather than a European one. Since its first arrival at the museum, the reassessment of this object by later Chinese ceramic scholars has now placed it firmly in the field of eighteenth-century Chinese court arts, evidence of which will be provided over the following pages. Over that same period, the terms "europeenerie" (first coined by collector and curator of 1 Private trade lay outside the bulk trade in commodities conducted on behalf of the East India Companies. As such, designs tended to be personalized, more skilfully produced, and significantly more expensive. For more on the distinction between private and company trade, see Luisa.
When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding i... more When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. First, I would like to express my gratitude to supervisor Dr Stacey Pierson, for her time and intellectual interest in this subject, for sharing her scholarly expertise, scrutinising my writing and ensuring the most rigorous of approaches to my PhD. Dr Louise Tythacott also provided valuable encouragement and guidance, helping to bring early thoughts to fruition. Colleagues past and present at the V&A and British Museum facilitated both access to the collections and the archives. I am particularly grateful to Dr Yu Ping Luk, Jessica Harrison-Hall and V&A Archivist, Nicholas Smith who were open and generous with their time and experience. I also thank former V&A curator Michael Archer and British Museum historian, Marjory Caygill for their recollections of earlier museum history.
This case study of the political agency of European style art objects at the eighteenthcentury Ch... more This case study of the political agency of European style art objects at the eighteenthcentury Chinese court begins with a small, finely enameled porcelain flask; a Chinese object that entered the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London in 1951 as part of the Basil Ionides Bequest of Chinese export porcelain (figs. 1a, 1b). Just like other articles in the bequest, the flask is decorated in European style-a common feature of Chinese porcelain manufactured to the specifications of wealthy Europeans as part of the lucrative private trade in goods from Asia1-with idyllic scenes of young European women and children. The manner of their depiction, paying careful attention to light and shade through the folds of their clothing and flesh tones on their bare arms and neck, and attempts toward spatial recession all conform to established and recognizable European painting conventions. However, on further examination, all is not as it might seem: the rocks seen here more closely resemble those depicted in traditional Chinese brush painting and the principal figures are staged against a blank white canvas and sit precariously close to the pictorial space-the curvature of the flask accentuates the visual allusion, like the lens of an eyeglass or optical device. Furthermore, how are these scenes framed? The decorative border pattern is unfamiliar and difficult to decode: is it too made of porcelain or some other rare material? In the shape of the vessel, we are finally on firmer ground. Flasks of this form had been popular in China for centuries, and as such this was a well-established point of reference, denoting cultural continuity and allusions to the "antique" in Qing dynasty China (1644-1911) when this object was made. The shape of this vessel therefore suggests a Chinese recipient rather than a European one. Since its first arrival at the museum, the reassessment of this object by later Chinese ceramic scholars has now placed it firmly in the field of eighteenth-century Chinese court arts, evidence of which will be provided over the following pages. Over that same period, the terms "europeenerie" (first coined by collector and curator of 1 Private trade lay outside the bulk trade in commodities conducted on behalf of the East India Companies. As such, designs tended to be personalized, more skilfully produced, and significantly more expensive. For more on the distinction between private and company trade, see Luisa.
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