Colloque : “Porcelain Circling the Globe : International Trading Structures and the East Asia Collection of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733)”.

Assembled garniture, porcelain from Jingdezhen and Dehua, China, 1650–1720, on an English japanned cabinet, ca. 1680, in the British Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Photo: Peter Kelleher).

Type : colloque.
Date et heure : du 13 au 15 juin 2018.
Lieu : The Porzellansammlung Dresden, Dresde.

The Porzellansammlung Dresden will host the international conference Porcelain Circling the Globe: International Trading Structures and the East Asia Collection of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733) in Dresden, Germany, on 13–14 June 2018. Over two days, the conference will discuss the porcelain trade conducted by individual dealers working outside of the dominant trading companies in the 17th and 18th centuries. It will focus on private networks in and beyond Asia, as well as the emergence of collecting East Asian art in Europe.

A significant focus of the conference will be on the former royal collection of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Augustus was an avid collector of East Asian prints, lacquer work and textiles, and accumulated over 25,000 examples of East Asian porcelain, of which around 8,000 objects are extant at the Porzellansammlung Dresden. The provenance of many of these objects is remarkably well-documented as they were recorded in the early 18th century in extensive royal inventories. Considering the number of porcelain dealers specifically mentioned in these unique records, one must ask the question of how important and influential these private networks were for the formation of East Asian porcelain collections—not only in Saxony, but also in other parts of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The conference will discuss the extent and importance of these private networks, and will debate the phenomenon of trading and collecting East Asian objects from both the traders’ as well as the collectors’ perspectives, with the purpose of investigating interactions between agents from different cultures and backgrounds. The conference is part of the research project Microstructures of Global Trade: East Asian Porcelain in the Collection of Augustus the Strong in the Context of the Museum Inventories of the 18th Century, sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). To join the mailing list for further details and updates, please write to ruth.simonis@skd.museum.

Programme

mercredi 13 juin 2018

9:00  Registration

9:30  Welcome by Marion Ackermann (SKD) and Julia Weber (SKD)

10:00  Panel 1 | Local Markets
Chair: Stacey Pierson
• Jingdezhen’s porcelain and the merchant route books in late imperial China – Anne Gerritsen (Universiteit Leiden)
• Imperial wares in the Dresden Porcelain Collection: Possibilities of Provenance – Sun Yue (Palace Museum Beijing) )
• The Chinese junk’s intermediate trade in Japanese porcelain for the West between the late 17th century and 1730s – Miki Sakuraba (National Museum of Japanese History)

12:00  Lunch break

13:30  Panel 2 | Trading Structures and Global Connections
Chair: Regina Krahl
• Let’s carefully balance it! Safavid adaptations of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain – Amelia Macioszek (Freie Universität Berlin)
• Some aspects of the Dutch porcelain trade in Asia in relation to the collection of Augustus the Strong – Christiaan Jörg (Groninger Museum, Universiteit Leiden)
• Chinese porcelain and the Netherlands – Jan Van Campen (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)

15:00  Coffee break

15:30  Panel 3 | From Seller to Buyer: Collecting Porcelain in Europe
Chair: Cora Würmell
• ‘His Electoral Highness wishes to have a porcelain service mounted with gold’: The role of the agents and dealers supporting the East Asian porcelain collection of Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria (1662–1726) – Max Tillmann (Independent scholar)
• From Cathay to Versailles: Oriental porcelain in the Louis XIV’s collection – Stephane Castelluccio (Centre André Chastel, Paris)
• Collecting Kakiemon porcelain in Holland and beyond – Menno Fitski (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)

16:30 Discussion

18:00  Welcome reception and open galleries in the Porzellansammlung at the Zwinger Palace

jeudi 14 juin 2018

9:30  Registration

10:00  Panel 4 | The Dresden Royal Collection of East Asian Porcelain
Chair: Christiaan Jörg
• The Dresden Porcelain Project: The 18th-century collection reassessed – Cora Würmell (SKD)
• Writing the Japanese Palace inventories 1721–27 and 1779 – Karolin Randhahn (Independent scholar)
• The King’s personal shopper: Count Lagnasco’s porcelain acquisitions in the Netherlands for Augustus the Strong, 1716/1717 – Ruth Sonja Simonis (SKD)

12:00  Lunch break

13:30  Panel 5 | Objects in Transfer
Chair: Ruth Sonja Simonis
• Augustus the Strong and his collection of Chinese prints and drawings: From China to Europe – Anita Xiaoming Wang (Independent scholar)
• From Europe to Dresden – Cordula Bischoff (Independent scholar)
•  Early exported Arita wares in the collection of Augustus the Strong – Tomoko Fujiwara (Kyushu Ceramic Museum)
• Export or exported? Challenging classifications of traded porcelains – Stacey Pierson (SOAS University of London)

14:50  Discussion

15:20  Closing words

16:30  Visit to the Japanese Palace (optional)

20:00  Public concert at Chinesischer Pavillon (optional)

vendredi 15 juin 2018

10:00–14:00  Optional visit to the workshops at the Meissen Manufactory