Chinese export paintings in Dutch public collections. A shared cultural visual repertoire

Chinese export paintings in Dutch public collections. A shared cultural visual repertoireThe collections of seventeen museums, archives and libraries in the Netherlands include a large number of Chinese export paintings,many of which have finally been unveiled thanks to the new publication Made for Trade - Made in China. Chinese export pointings in Dutch collections: art ond commodity. Existing research on the corpus deals mostly with the transfer of stylistic aspects; Western and Chinese painting conventions; literary sources; historical models; socio-cultural and aesthetic differences; dating and iconographical issues; and technical analyses regarding conservation of pigments and paper. ln contrast, Made for trade puts a new focus on these paintings: to see them as meaningful information carriers of an unknown culture that derive their legitimacy from the historical China trade, and to draw upon current theoretical approaches for treatment of these transnational works of art in future museum practices and strategies. Made for trade follows the entire trajectory of this specifìc transcultural painting genre, from the production two centuries ago to the current position. At work in this trajectory are mechanisms between people, institutions and the paintings, which increase or, indeed, diminish the appreciation of this time- and place-specifìc art.Modern and Contemporary Studie