Punch Bowl
Chinese export porcelain (China)
c. 1789
- Medium
- Hard-paste porcelain, glaze, enamels in colors, gilding
- Classification
- Ceramics
- Dimensions
- 15 × 36.3 × 25.8 cm (5 15/16 × 14 5/16 × 10 3/16 in.)
- Culture
- China
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by the Antiquarian Society
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Chinese officials limited all international trading to the city of Canton, and segregated foreigners within a 15-acre area. Decorated in grisaille, or monochrome, the exterior of this punch bowl shows the 13 trade buildings, known as hongs (foreign factories), that lined this restricted area. Each building was associated with a particular country, and they doubled as counting houses and living quarters, where agents resided during the fall trading season. In this view of the hongs, the American factory lies between those of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, suggesting that this was an early rendering, made before the United States permanently established its factory next to Sweden’s.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
