The Westward Movement of Chinese Export Harbour Views: Significant Paintings with a Social Function

Article (Chapter) in proceedings of the First Rombouts Graduate Conference Globalization and Glocalization in China, at Leiden University, held in Leiden on 6 and 7 September 2011.This article offers a closer examination of Chinese export harbour views and, in doing so, reveals that waterfronts and ports - essential places in the transcontinental movement of commodities - were a significant topic of Chinese export paintings. This article discusses the material (these paintings) as commodities and it touches briefly upon some theoretical approaches which seem useful to open up these works of art.