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Toys in trade : playfully poetic technology in Qing Dynasty Canton
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Baark, Josefine (2022) Toys in trade : playfully poetic technology in Qing Dynasty Canton. Journal of Early Modern History, 26 (6). pp. 492-519. doi:10.1163/15700658-bja10013 ISSN 1385-3783.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1163/15700658-bja10013
Abstract
The article explores how an artisan community in Canton adapted European clock-making technology to the making of automata in a Chinese aesthetic style. Moreover, it positions a unique automaton from the National Museum of Denmark in relation to a Chinese story and connected drinking game. Approaching the mechanical tableau as continuously in the process of being cocreated across social and global boundaries, it points to how new technology impacted ways of trading in the international community in Canton. When the elites in Canton set the mechanical tableau drumming, chiming, and spinning; gulped their wine, and passed each other flowering branches, they cocreated and performed a social ritual that traversed boundaries. Ultimately, a close reading of the sculpture reveals an often invisible aspect of international trade: that negotiations could rely on play as much as power, capital, and influence.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > History of Art | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Toy industry -- China, China -- Commerce -- Europe, Europe -- Commerce -- China | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Early Modern History | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Brill | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1385-3783 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | December 2022 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 26 | ||||||||
| Number: | 6 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 492-519 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1163/15700658-bja10013 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 29 June 2021 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 8 April 2022 | ||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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