The Canton Connection

DEERFIELD, MASS.

:On May 7, Historic Deerfield will open "The Canton Connection: Art and Commerce of the China Trade, 1784-1860," an exhibition featuring more than 120 objects from the museum's Asian art collection. This exhibition will be on view in the Flynt Center of Early New England Life at Historic Deerfield until August 6.

The exhibition focuses on trade activity and relationships between American and Chinese merchants in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. It also explores the role of trade between China and rural New England communities, dispelling the myth that the China trade was exclusively an urban, coastal phenomenon. The stories of Connecticut River Valley merchants, sailors, captains and wives involved in ventures to China are examined through advertisements, diaries, letters and many actual objects brought home.

Exotic luxuries, such as silks, porcelains, lacquer ware and ivory carvings, were eagerly purchased, but tea, above all other commodities, made trade with China imperative. One of the rarest objects presented is an album of 24 hand painted images of the tea production process, from harvesting the leaves to packing them in boxes. This exhibition also contains many examples of objects desired from China, such as porcelain punch bowls, painted fans, patterned silks, gleaming silverware and ivory chess sets.

Historic Deerfield's collection of China trade goods owned by Connecticut River Valley residents includes a set of Chinese export porcelain cups and saucers owned by John Russell (1731-1775) and Hannah Sheldon Russell (1738-1814) of Deerfield, and a polychrome enameled punch bowl owned by Charles Phelps Jr (1744-1814) and Elizabeth Porter Phelps (1747-1817) of Hadley, Mass. The exhibition will include a special loan of a miniature carved ivory "whatnot" shelf brought back by Caroline Hyde Butler (1804-1892) of Northampton, Mass., as a souvenir of her trip to China in 1837.

Amanda Lange, curator of historic interiors at Historic Deerfield, organized "The Canton Connection" exhibition. Ms Lange is also the author of Chinese Export Art at Historic Deerfield, a full color catalog of Historic Deerfield's China trade art collection forthcoming this summer. The catalog will include more than 125 object entries in the areas of graphic arts, textiles, metals, novelties and porcelains, as well as several essays, "Of Merchants and Mandarins: An Overview of the China Trade," "The Connecticut River Valley and the China Trade," and "Collecting Chinese Export Art at Historic Deerfield."

In conjunction with the exhibition, Historic Deerfield will offer a free public lecture series, "Western Merchants and Chinese Mandarins: Doing Business in China, 1784-1860," planned for the summer. The lectures will cover the social history of export trade, commerce and the specific adventures of the ship Neptune, one of the most successful merchant ships that sailed from New Haven in 1796.

Dr Jacques Downs, professor of history emeritus from the University of New England at Biddeford, Maine, will speak July 14 on "American Traders in Canton, 1783-1844." Mr Downs is the author of The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American Policy, 1784-1844 (1997).

Dr Phyllis Whitman Hunter, associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and author of Purchasing Identity in the Atlantic World, Massachusetts Merchants 1670-1780 (2001) will speak July 21 on "English Regattas, Scottish Reels, Italian Operas and Chopstick Dinner: The Commerce and Sociability in Canton and Macao." Dr Hunter is currently a fellow at the National Humanities Center and is working on her next book, Geographies of Capitalism: Imagining Asia in Early America.

Amy Trout, curator of the New Haven Colony Historical Society in New Haven, Conn., will speak July 28 on the topic, "Witness to Adventure: First Hand Accounts Aboard the Ship Neptune (1796-1799)." She was the curator of an exhibition on "The Voyage of the Neptune, 1796-1799" (1996-97). This voyage was one of the best documented and most successful of the early American China trade ventures. She will discuss the Neptune's crew, their voyage, sealing in South America and subsequent trade in Canton, China.

Historic Deerfield is on Old Main Street. For information, 413-774-5581.