An Exploration of Chinese Export Silver

It is an outdated notion to see non-Western decorative arts as “exotic.” They are, after all, reflections of the culture that produced them, their designs deeply rooted in the traditions, spirituality and mythos of the artisans who created them. Even so, Chinese Export Silver is still marvelous to our eyes, richly ornamented with coiled dragons, bamboo thickets and scenes of everyday life with persons in attire and attitude so unlike our own.

Yet beneath the alluring ornament and beyond the colonialist notion of exoticism, we find surprisingly familiar industry in the Chinese silver trade. Even the designation “Chinese Export Silver” has been proven by modern scholarship to be inaccurate and outdated. While some pieces, particularly those from the early days of the China Trade, mimicked Western forms and decoration and were made exclusively for export, the majority were actually made for the domestic market. Silver’s prestige in China, where payments for goods and merchants during the early China Trade period (1785-1840) were made in silver, was even greater than it was in the West. Whereas the American tradition was to minimize the amount of silver used for an item, even the most modest Chinese-made pieces are substantial and hefty.

New research, most notably by Drs. Adrien von Ferscht and Chao Huang, reveals that the Latin characters distinctively struck on Chinese silver – long thought to be those of silversmiths – are most often those of retailers or merchants. Even then, these names are often fictitious and simplified to cater to English speakers.

The prominent Cutshing of Canton [see lot 195], for instance, is now known to have begun as a partnership between powerful Hong merchant Wu Binjian (1769- 1843) and Boston sea captain John Perkins Cushing (1787-1862); the name “Cutshing” is likely a deliberate corruption of “Cushing.” Leeching [see lot 193] was known since the 1860s to be a merchant house name (meaning “increasing profit”), but the designation was lost in favor of the quaint illusion of a lone craftsman toiling away at his bench.

Late Qing Dynasty silver (the more accurate and increasingly preferred term for the silver made in the trade cities of China in the 19th and early 20th centuries) embraces a wide variety of traditional Chinese and Western forms, as well as a hybrid of both in some instances, and we now know that their manufacturing and commerce was often a cooperation of the two cultures as well.

New Orleans Auction Galleries is pleased to present a small but significant selection of fine Chinese silver, the appeal of its luxurious design only enhanced by a greater appreciation and understanding of their origin.

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