Nanking Cargo
Nanking ware refers to blue and white Chinese porcelain made during the eighteenth and the early part of nineteenth centuries at Jingdezhen and shipped from the port of Nanking. The decoration is usually of Chinese subjects, most frequently landscapes with buildings, although border pattern, such as the butterfly or Fitzhugh, as it is sometimes called, pattern, are sometimes inspired by European sources. Enameled porcelain for export was made at Jingdezhen but was painted in polychrome in the enameling shops of Canton and shipped from there.
It is confusing that this name, Nanking, was corrupted to Nankeen, and that, later, collectors have given this name to various blue and white patterns. In the shipˇ¦s manifests of the East India Company, a clear distinction is made between Nankeen and chinaware. It is obvious that Nankeen is not porcelain; in fact, it is a buff-colored cotton cloth used especially for breeches and first made at Nanking. There is further confusion because ceramic historians have applied the name Nanking to a particular class if porcelain decoration, but there is hardly any evidence to support their use if this terminology. The term Nanking has been used in some Staffordshire pottery factories to refer to the inner border of a pattern that is applied below the shoulder of a plate and is usually about half an inch wide.
Canton Ware
During the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century, porcelain was decorated in the enameling shops of Canton (Kuangtung province) and then shipped to Europe. It was also at this port that European merchants had their warehouses. Porcelain was sent in white from kilins at Jingdezhen to Canton for painting to the merchantˇ¦s or customerˇ¦s order. Since decoration in underglaze blue was a factory operation, ware of this kind intended for the European market usually went by way of Nanking, though, no doubt, porcelain decorated with both underglaze blue and enamel colors came through Canton.
Canton willowware includes the early hand painted Chinese patterns and also the English and American copies of these patterns.
The oriental landscapes and genre scenes of China trade porcelains greatly influenced the English earthenware industry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Potters in Staffordshire, such as Wood and Sons of Burslem, and elsewhere copied Chinese Motifs directly or developed oriental themes of their own. These designs were sometimes painted but more often were applied by the technique in transfer printing.
The Chinese began to export porcelain to Europe in the sixteenth century, and a few pieces with European inscriptions are known that were made before 1600. With the fall of Ming dynasty in 1644, the export trade could well have come to an end. However, trade was resumed with China after 1680 with significant changes for both East and West. Supported by the emperor occasioned a reorganization of the Jingdezhen kilins, leading to improvements in materials and production methods; his receptiveness to Western artistic techniques and styles resulted in an entirely new aesthetic of porcelain decoration.
The allure and novelty of the Chinese blue and white palette ˇV then and still synonymous with the material itself ˇV called for no change. The immediate challenge was to exploit the existing industrialized production to new markets by making Chinese porcelain useful in a Western context. As the Dutch East India Company was the largest importer during the seventeenth century, the Dutch demand for pottery for table use influenced production and eventually resulted in the table services of the next century. During the eighteenth century, much white ware was enameled in Canton for export to Europe.
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