Summary

CHINESE ARMORIAL PORCELAIN ~ VOLUME II
David Sanctuary Howard
with a foreword by Peter Ll. Gwynn-Jones CVO, Garter Principal King of Arms

Thirty years ago Faber & Faber published Chinese Armorial Porcelain which has remained the most comprehensive book on the subject. At that time David Howard did not anticipate the need for a second volume; however, continued research has resulted in this book which illustrates 1,380 services not illustrated in Volume I, in addition to the 160 services which formed the addendum to that volume.

The material in Chinese Armorial Porcelain Volume II is almost entirely additional to the first volume, containing a new introduction and four new chapters on aspects of the China Trade. All the appendices are revised and extended and the index of mottoes and index of services cover both volumes (the latter containing an alphabetical list of over 4,000 services – more than 3,320 illustrated and 680 unillustrated – all made for the British or American market). This is an essential companion for those who own the first volume (which the author hopes to republish in colour by 2006) but this book certainly stands on its own and, as Garter King of Arms writes in the foreword, ‘is an astounding work – destined to be a major reference source in the future’.

While the book relies heavily on the evidence of armorials and their ability to date, sometimes to the exact year, when a service was made, it also throws extra light on to the whole China Trade which was an integral part of the commercial success of 18th Century Britain. The details of captains and supercargoes and the record of the sheer volume of trade which attended the growth of the largest company the world has ever known – the Honourable East India Company – provide a reliable and accurate backdrop to many other events in the 18th Century. This also enables researchers to use the evidence of heraldry and the 1,980 illustrations (all but 100 in colour) to date many stylistic changes of porcelain in a way which, because of the lack of Chinese records of the export trade, would not otherwise be possible.

Publication of the first volume led to a reassessment of the scale of this specialist porcelain trade which was handled, almost exclusively, by private traders working within the framework of the East India Company. Details of what these merchants purchased are not recorded in the India Office Library and it is only possible to gauge their influence on trade and decorative etiquette in Europe by studying what they brought home – some 12,000 miles by sea – at a time when travel was far less certain than it is today. The chapters in this book explain not only the natural but also the political risks of trading in the 18th Century.

To many, this volume will provide the moment when the identity of a piece of porcelain is revealed. While the book, with its considerable index of mottoes and cross-references to both volumes, will fulfil that need, in his foreword Garter King of Arms concludes, ‘Unlike so many works on an esoteric subject, this has the aesthetic combined with the heraldic and genealogical to ensure a wider base of popular support – from the connoisseur to the armorist and from the collector of works of art to the social historian.’