Maritime Trade in Chinese porcelain

Asian Trade
Trade was an integral part in the development of Chinese ceramics as it gave the impetus for the advancement of new ideas and techniques. From as early as the T'ang dynasty (618-906), Persian and Arab traders were travelling the inland caravan routes linking the kilns in the northern provinces to the Middle East and India. However there was also an important maritime trade at this time especially with S.E. Asia, where many of the towns and cities had their own sizeable Chinese populations. Likewise the southern port cities of China, especially Canton developed their own communities of foreign merchants, especially Arabs, some of whom were to live in extraordinary wealth and opulence.

The ceramic maritime trade was to increase dramatically following the defeat of the Northern Sung dynasty by the Mongols in 1127. The Sung dynasty moved their court down to Hangchou to rule a smaller empire in the southern provinces (Southern Sung, 1127-1279).

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European Trade
The first Europeans to begin trading with China were the Portuguese. The Chinese authorities forbade any direct trade with Japan and the Portuguese took advantage of this by acting as middlemen between the two countries and were eventually allowed to settle and trade from Macao at the mouth of the Pearl River in 1557. In 1603 the Dutch captured a Portuguese galleon, or carrack, full of Chinese porcelain ( hence kraak porcelain)which caused such a stir in the auctions of Amsterdam that the Dutch were soon committed to their own trade missions to the East and set up an administrative headquarters at Batavia (Jakarta) on the island of Java.

The Dutch however were finding great difficulty in trading with China as the Chinese isolationist policy required subtle concepts of reverence and diplomacy which the Dutch could not appreciate and for many years were only allowed to trade with junks arriving at Batavia from the Chinese mainland. It was through Batavia that the porcelain was brought back to Europe for auction.

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