In the dining room at Dalnavert Museum, there is a mesmerising white porcelain bowl with gold rim outlines and an expansive interior suitable for holding liquids. Both the internal and external rims of this bowl feature designs typical of Cantonese-style porcelain craftsmanship: alternating panels of green and pink floral patterns that feature butterflies as well as birds. Intertwined with these floral motifs are framed paintings of young Asian men and women in traditional Chinese clothing in what might be a scene of romantic courtship. This bowl rests on an ebony stand with five cabriole legs. The stand, whose legs have intricate carvings at the top and bottom, elevates the bowl, helping to make it a centrepiece of the dining room.

Chinese porcelain has an interesting history of collection and preservation, especially amongst the middle classes of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century Europe. The production of Chinese porcelain can be traced back to the early T’ang dynasty, around 618 to 906. Some experts believe that the finest Chinese porcelains were manufactured in the Sung dynasty of the 1200s. However, it was the porcelain work of the Ming dynasty, which came to a close in the mid-1600s, that crossed the Asian continent and gained eminence in the West.

The early seventeenth century saw the rise of the first trade route between the Portuguese and Cantonese people in 1557. For nearly two decades, starting in 1602, the Dutch East India Company commanded trade routes with China while the year 1699 marked the arrival of the first English ship to import trade products from Canton.¹ In 1784, this trade spread from Europe to the Americas, with dignitaries, such as George Washington, and institutions, such as the Society of Cincinnati, placing special orders for porcelain punch bowls featuring American nationalist imagery.² Increased rates of trade with the West prompted the production of porcelain objects including tea sets, vases, and bowls together with the export of other products such as tea, silks, and spices. The famous “Kraak,” a blue and white pattern on porcelain dishes, is believed to have received its name from the Dutch word “Caracea,” which was the name of the first Portuguese trade ship to enter China.³

The popularity of Chinese porcelain in nineteenth-century England can be attributed to colonial expansion, technological advancement, and the rising class anxieties of early industrial capitalist society. This rise in the appeal must be looked at from the distinct perspectives of the public and domestic spaces. At the end of the Enlightenment era, coffee houses became one of the most popular social spaces, encouraging discourse around Britain’s foreign trade policies and the literary culture of the century. In Chinese Export Porcelains, Andrew Madsen and Carolyn White explain how the circulation of travellers' accounts of the far East in these coffee houses played a key role in developing a “romantic view of China”.⁴ Luxury beverages such as tea, coffee, and punch were served in exotic Chinese porcelain wares, thereby making these public spaces key to the development of an industry engaged in the import of foreign objects.

Alongside these public developments, the homes of the nineteenth-century English middle class became another key scene of the consumption of Chinese porcelain. As Madsen and White explain, the easy flow of disposable income alongside a desire to assimilate with the gentry class prompted an interest in exotic objects as a demonstration of refinement and class. The appeal of “material collection” as a means to procure respect in society aided the development of “new rooms specially designed for display of Chinese porcelains” in middle-class households.⁵ Alongside this architectural shift in house design, major newspapers like the Manchester Courier and The Evening Telegraph and Post reported on the auctioneering of Chinese porcelain, some of which sold for shockingly high prices.

The widespread use of Chinese porcelain in English public and private spaces is representative of the society’s class consciousness and colonial interests. Admired for its beautiful and intricate craftsmanship, Chinese porcelain became a symbol of wealth, upward social mobility, and colonial supremacy in English households. A.E Grantham notes that many of these imported products were “whole dinner sets intended for Chinese and not European meal”.⁶ This raises an important question: was this beautiful bowl designed to be a punch bowl or was it an object with a specific purpose in Chinese culinary culture?

Both growing demand and rising concern around the popularity of Chinese imports supported the formation of industrial factories across Europe and England that attempted to mass produce ceramic alternatives to porcelain, such as Bone China. The increased presence of Chinese porcelain in nineteenth-century English culture is thereby representative of growing colonial anxieties as well as a shift in the utilitarian value of foreign objects. The presence of an awe-inspiring object such as this imported porcelain bowl in middle-class homes documents Victorian culture’s attitude towards class, race, and consumerism.