Joints of Utility, Crafts of Knowledge: The Material Culture of the Sino-British Furniture Trade during the Long Eighteenth Century Kyoungjin Bae Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2016 © 2016 Kyoungjin Bae All rights reserved ABSTRACT Joints of Utility, Crafts of Knowledge: The Material Culture of the Sino-British Furniture Trade during the Long Eighteenth Century Kyoungjin Bae This dissertation examines the material culture of the Sino-British furniture trade in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the British East India Company (EIC) began importing a large quantity of furniture made in Canton (Guangzhou), China. As the trade between Britain and China became standardized around 1720, this furniture became a part of the private trade carried out by merchants associated with Company. Unlike other objects of the China trade that fed into the vogue of chinoiserie, export furniture crafted with hardwoods from the Indian Ocean was produced in European designs of the time and thus was often indistinguishable from its Western counterparts. What cultural and economic values did export furniture represent in the early modern maritime trade and how did it reify the trans-regional movement of knowledge and taste between China and Britain? Going beyond the conventional perspective on export Chinese objects oriented toward European reception, I connect production with consumption in order to follow the trajectory of export furniture from its origins in the intra-Asian timber trade to its requisition and manufacture in Canton to its reception and use in both Britain and China, highlighting how this process linked the disparate spheres of commerce, knowledge production and distribution, and cultural practices. In the course of exploring these multiple dimensions of the object’s material life, this dissertation underscores export furniture’s bicultural and transcultural characteristics. Utilizing diverse sets of visual, material, and textual sources, each chapter of the dissertation investigates different aspects of the movement of furniture as an assemblage. Chapter 1 reconstructs the itinerary of export furniture as a commodity from the EIC timber trade between India and China to the ordering and shipping of the furniture for the British market. I show how the character of export furniture was shaped by the constraints of space and the economic, environmental, and epistemic contingencies of long distance travel and communication. Chapter 2 examines the influence of imported Asian rosewood – an important cabinet timber from which most hardwood Chinese export furniture was made – on early modern British arboreal knowledge. If the knowledge of rosewood in the seventeenth century was grounded in classical texts that defined it as a subshrub growing in the eastern Mediterranean region, in the eighteenth century the term came to refer to a hardwood species imported from tropical Asia. I argue that this change allowed rosewood to obtain a new status as a universal category in the botanical taxonomy, which collected, pruned, and ordered heterogeneous cultural and natural information associated with it into a neatly classified “cabinet” of universal knowledge. Chapter 3 returns to Canton to investigate Cantonese cabinetmakers and the production of export furniture. By reading the joinery of extant export furniture pieces, I show how Chinese artisans recreated foreign forms by mobilizing their embodied knowledge of craft rather than by imitating European joinery constructions. The details of this material translation not only reflect the flexibility and resilience of traditional Chinese craft but also illuminate the tacit knowledge and craft patterns of early modern Chinese artisans. Chapters 4 and 5 turn to the domain of consumption in Britain and China, respectively. Chapter 4 explores how Chinese cabinets were experienced in early modern Britain. Comparing lacquered and hardwood display cabinets, I show that Chinese cabinets were not just exotic objects; they played an active role in the evolution of the cabinet as a type of furniture in the domestic material culture and created an affective space both within themselves and in their ambient space that invited the bodily experience and imagination of the user-beholder. The final chapter examines the movement and adaptation of European round tables in mid-Qing Chinese material culture. Introduced by European mariners to Canton, the round tables easily found their niche in local everyday life and spread beyond Guangdong. I show how they partook in the formation of a new social dining practice that conveyed a new political vision of equality. As a whole, my dissertation argues that export furniture was a Eurasian object that embodied cross-cultural knowledge of craft and nature, and engendered new ideas of utility and sociability. Table of Contents List of Maps, Tables, and Illustrations ii Acknowledgements v Dedication vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 From Company to Private Hands: the Sino-British Trade in Tropical Timbers and 21 Furniture, 1700-1770 Chapter 2 Mapping the World within a Cabinet of Knowledge: Eurasian Rosewood in 67 Eighteenth-Century Britain Chapter 3 Bicultural Object: Translation of Joinery and the Making of Export Furniture in 101 Canton, 1700-1830 Chapter 4 Layers of Space: Imagination and the Bodily Experience of the “China Cabinets” in 135 Britain, 1660-1760 Chapter 5 Along the Round Globe: the Material Culture of European Round Tables in Mid- 165 Qing China Conclusion 198 Bibliography 205 Appendix (Uploaded as Supplemental PDF) 216 i List of Maps, Tables, and Illustrations Map 1 Map of the Pearl River Delta 2 1.2 A Map of the East Indies of Indostan by Thomas Kichini 217 Tables 1 Furniture Imported on board Martha, Sarah, and Dorothy, sold between 23 November and December 1699 2 The EIC Import of Redwood in Canton, 1754-1777 36 3 The EIC Import of Sandalwood in Canton up to 1774 44 4 Summary of the Private Trade in Furniture Registered in the Canton Diary, 50 1721-1740 Illustrations 1.1 Rowlandson et al., East India Company Sale Room at Leadenhall Street 216 1.2 A Map of the East Indies or Indostan by Thomas Kichini 217 1.3 “Redwood” or Zitan Wood (Pterocarpus santalinus) in Talakona Forest, India 218 1.4 Indian Sandalwood (Santalum album) in Hyderabad, India 218 1.5 Chinese artist, Old China Street 219 1.6 A Coat of Arm Inlaid with Mother of Pearl on a Padouk Chair, John Soane’s 220 Museum 1.7 John Brownrigg Bellasis, The Artist’s Cabin on the Malabar 221 1.8 Bureau Consisting of a Chest and a Writing Desk, Private Collection 222 1.9 Hall Chair Ordered for Francis Child, Osterley Park 223 1.10 Card table, Saltram 224 1.11 Settee, Private Collection 225 1.12 Hall Chair, V&A 226 2.1 Chippendale Specimen Cabinet, Lady Lever Art Gallery 227 2.2 The Interior of the Chippendale Specimen Cabinet 228 2.3 Names of the Woods Veneered on the Front of Interior Drawers 229 2.4 Huali Wood Growing in Hainan Island, China 230 2.5 Images of White and Red Rosewoods from Thomas Johnson’s The Herball 231 2.6 Image of Aspalathus or rosewood from Pierre Pomet’s Histoire Generale des 231 Drogues 3.1 Chair, John Soane’s Museum 232 3.2 A Giant’s Arm Brace Used in the Soane Chair 233 3.3 Chair Made with a Fore-and-Aft Strut, The Frick Collection 234 ii 3.4 Chinese artist, Interior of a Room in One of the Factories, Probably the British 235 Factory 3.5 Illustration from Lu Ban jing Showing Carpenter’s Close Relationship with His 236 Client during His Work 3.6 Haopan Street, the Center of Carpenter’s Workshops in Canton 237 3.7 The Carpenter’s Square Depicted in the Sketch of the Part of the Suburbs and City 237 of Canton 3.8 Chinese artist, Export Furniture Store in Canton 238 3.9 Inscription Indicating “Upper (Shang 上)” on an Export Hardwood Chair, 239 Shugborough Estate 3.10 Desk and Bookcase, V&A 239 3.11 Hong Shang, Design of a Screen for Shengjing Imperial Palace 240 3.12 Christian Lintrup’s Desk-and-Bookcase, Danish Art Museum 241 3.13 A Cogged Scarf Joint Used in the Soane Chair 242 3.14a Illustration of a Butt-Joint 242 3.14b A Butt-Joint Used on an Export Corner Chair 243 3.15 A Free Tenon Used in an Export Tilt-Top Table 244 3.16 A Curved Metal Hinge Used on the V&A Desk and Bookcase 244 4.1 A Lacquered Chest of Drawers, Ham House 245 4.2 The Escutcheon of the Chest of Drawers 245 4.3 Interior of a Lacquered Cabinet, Snowshill Manor 246 4.4 Sacred Gloriette used in Guangdong Province, Guangdong Folk Art Museum 246 4.5 Interior of “Dutch Cabinet Kitchen”, V&A 247 4.6 Thomas Chippendale, Design of a China Cabinet (Plate no. 106) from The 247 Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director 4.7 China Cabinet, Thomas Chippendale, Shugborough Estate 248 4.8 Thomas Bowles, The Chinese House, the Rotunda, & the Company in Masquerade 249 in Ranelagh Garden 4.9 Thomas Chippendale, Design of a China Cabinet (plate no. 110) from The 250 Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director 5.1 Round Table Used at a Wedding Banquet, Guangdong Provincial Museum 251 5.2 Illustration of Rectangular Tables Used at Formal Banquets from Jin ping mei 252 5.3 Gu Jianlong, Ximen Decides to Deflower Li Guijie 252 5.4 Japanned Tilt-top table, Blithe House 253 5.5 Gateleg Table, Geffrye Museum 253 5.6 Trade Card of Thomas Butler 254 5.7 Guan Lianchang, A Canton Lacquershop 255 5.8 William Prinsep, Taking Leave of Canton with Linsay in a Fast Boat 255 5.9 Export