The Chitra Collection: China’s Early Trade with the West

This Chinese Famille Rose teapot, with cover and stand, is in the style of a Meissen pot from Germany. The pear-shaped pot, lid, and stand are decorated with iron-red and gilt flowers, and each of the three pieces is edged with a turquoise and gilt rim.

The Directors of the East India Company in London, who by the second half of the 17th century were buying tea as well as teapots and bowls, were not always satisfied with the goods that arrived. In March 1685, they wrote to their president in the East who was in charge of the various trading posts: “We can now but briefly tell you that we are amazed at the prices you have invoiced to us, your own goods from Chyna, being 50 per cent as near as we can guess more than they will bring here . . . the thea is generally trash . . . the thea cups dear at 1d apiece at the Fort—breakage considered.” However, the Company cannot have been too disappointed for between 1720 and 1770, the British East India Company imported between 30 and 35 million pieces of Chinese porcelain.

The cargoes of Chinese ceramics carried to Europe included not just porcelain wares but also the unglazed earthenwares from Yixing (Yi-hsing), an important tea-producing region on the banks of Lake T’ai-hu in Jiangsu province since B.C. 220 and renowned for its long history of pottery manufacture dating back 6,000 years. “Purple wares” became famous during the Ming Dynasty and found their way to the West during the 17th and 18th centuries. When the Dutch ship The Geldermalsen sank in the South China Sea in 1751, the bulk of its Nanking Cargo was tea and porcelain but also contained eight hexagonal-, “rounded pearl-,” and straight cylindrical-shaped teapots made from Yixing clay. The cargo records of the Dutch East India Company do not often mention Yixing pots. These eight were found packed separately from the porcelain goods and may have been gifts the crew purchased for their own use or to give as presents. But the quantity of Yixing pots imported to the West increased steadily as more and more people started drinking loose-leaf China tea.

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