Colours in abundance and bundles - the sale of Chinese silk textiles
at the auctions of the Scandinavian East India Companies
References to add:
David Michell in Journal of Textile History 2010
Pippa the Hangzhoy Silk Museum http://ebwg.sunbo.net/index.php?xname=OVRD401
Slide 1.
The paper I about to give here is based on research I am currently doing as part of a project
on East India Trade together with Meike Fellinger, Felicia Gottmann, Chris Nierstrazs.
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The name of the project is “Europe’s Asian Centuries: Trading Eurasia 1600-1830”
and it is headed by Maxine Berg.
As it happens I also work on another post doc project in Sweden.
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It is on the legacy of Carolous Linnaeus and the late 18th century natural history links
between London and Uppsala.
I mention it here because, the work with this paper I have given me reasons to look
at aspect to do with botany and entomology.
The different East India Companies of early modern Europe are our main focus of attention
in the Warwick project.
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I work on the Scandinavian East India Companies, the Danish and the Swedish
Companies:
o “Asiatiska kompaniet”
o Svenska Ost Indiska Kompaniet.
The two companies were on the one hand quite different.
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The Danish Company, established already in 1616, traded with China as well as India,
where the company had a chain of trading stations.
The Swedish company on the other hand was a much slimmer operation, established
in 1731 it almost exclusively traded with China.
However, although different in terms of organisation and history, the Scandinavian
companies had a lot in common too.
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As companies based in small neutral countries they were well placed to compete
with the bigger companies during periods of European conflicts.
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Their ships were also frequently used to bring home the fortunes of particularly the
English East India Companies’ employees in Asia, as part of the so called remittance
trade.
Moreover, and particularly important here, the goods the Scandinavian East India
Companies brought to Gothenburg and Copenhagen were to a large extent re-exported.
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This was the case for between 70% and 90% of the goods.
The main reason for this was that the Scandinavian populations was too poor to
consume the luxuries from the east.
Moreover, the high duties on tea in Britain made smuggling a lucrative business.
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In fact the trade with tea from China provided the main drive for the Scandinavian
East India ventures.
However, tea was not the only goods brought over from the East.
Indian textiles and Chinese porcelain and silk were other goods that were shipped over and
sold at auctions in Copenhagen and Gothenburg.
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Again goods that to a large extent was re-exported.
It is in order to understand first of all the role of Copenhagen and Gothenburg as peripheral
emporiums for East India goods:
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including the transnational European trade with Asian goods
That I have developed an interest in colours and particularly the colours of silk
textiles brought over from China.
Although in terms of bulk or Cargo, the quantity of Chinese Silk was not very significant, it
was how ever a very valuable commodity.
I will get back to some of my future plans, and how a study of colours might illuminate the
consumption of Chinese Silk in Europe towards the end of the paper:

Hoping that feedback from you might help develop some of my plans.
For the first and longest section of this paper I am going to focus on the names of the
colours of the silk and the relationship between colours and price.
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Slide 2
However I will start with the source l have been working with first
My first example is from a catalogue listing the goods for sale in Gothenburgh in August
1748.
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This stuff had been brought from China by the two ships Calmar and Kronprinsen
which set out in 1746, and it lists tea, porcelain and silk material for sale.
What makes this sales catalogue particularly interesting is the fact that the prices the
stuff was sold for is listed, together with the name of the purchaser.
The section covering the silk starts with a little introduction saying that:
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Prior to the auction, the textile had been on display in the house of Joh. Freid Bruun,
who lived by the Great Harbour (this is before the Swedish East India Company
invest in their own magazines).
The Catalogue also statues that since any purchaser had had the chance to examine
the pieces beforehand they had no right to refuse a lot which they bought:
o but for the exception if it was shorter than stated, and that had to be with
more than a Swedish aln, which is about 60 centimetre.
Slide 3
All in all 9857 Pieces were for sale in 395 lots. There were 5 general qualities but only 3 in
any substantial quantities:
4996 Damask pieces:
Damask is a fabric with a none raised pattern in the same colour as the background fabric.
The Damasks for sale in Gothenburg are described as either “Meuble” or “Poises” (i.e. a
flower bouquet).
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Only 400 out of nearly 5000 Damask pieces were described with the help of a
pattern number. About 10 pattern numbers
3250 Taffeta pieces:
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Is a smooth plain woven fabric, can either be pieced dyed or yarn dyed.
The Taffeta for sale in Gothenburg is distinguished as 4, 6, or 8 threads
1040 Paduasoy:
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originally a French terms a strong corded or grosgrain silk textile
Others qualities:
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There are also some pieces named “Gorgoroner” and Satin for sale
But the Damask, Taffeta and Paduasoy made up the main bulk of the textiles for sale,
about 90%.
Specifications:
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Next to name the lengths and the width is specified. There were standard three
lengths with some small variations:
13.8-14.1m;
16.2-16.65m;
22.8-23.7,
Width when specified was 1.25 m.
Colour:
These were not the only way in which the textile were described or defined, added to the
above parameters was the one of colour
Slide 4
In fact, colour seems to matter a great deal, maybe not surprisingly since silk is a textile fibre
that absorbs dyes easily.
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All in all there are 26 colours mentioned in the sale catalogue.
With the exception of a handful of fabrics that are described as stripy the colour of
every piece is specified.
With this information I have created this circle diagram. I have tried to match the
colour of the segment with the actual colour referred to.
So the biggest segment, the blue one, represent the number of pieces which are
described as “Sky blue” in the catalogue.
Needless to say I have sometimes guessed what colour or shade is referred to with
certain names.
On the hand out is a list of the names and my translation of them. The order in which the
colours are listed reflects how common they were, so sky blue was the most common
colour.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Slide 6:
Before we look closer at the list of names of colour – there are a few things to say about the
concept of colour in the 18th century.
The 18th century was a very dynamic period when it comes to developing theories or
systems for how to categorise colours, including nomenclatures and descriptions of them.
Like Sara Lowengard has discussed The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe this
was an area where science and trade merged.
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She makes the point that in order to understand the role and development of
colours in the 18th century we need to keep the perspective broad.
Lowengard identifies three different strands:
One is rooted in physics and Newton’s descriptions of colours
They were based on observations of a colour spectrums produced by illuminating a prism.
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These are the same colours you can detect in a rainbow.
Newton identified 7 colours sometimes called principle colours;
o red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
The second strand of discussion of colours was one to which trades men and manufacturer
largely contributed.
Here there are different ways to think about colours stemming from manufacturing
processes.
Basic colours were the colours different groups of tradesmen worked with.
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Dyers were traditionally separated into different groups of pending on if they
worked with red, yellow, blue, black etc.
Basic colours in ceramics and enamelling were black, white, yellow, green, blue and
purple colours, again different trades men tended to specialize in one colour.
Dyers and manufacturers also worked with the notion of primary colours, i.e. blue, red and
yellow.
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This colours were of course important, because of the wide range of secondary
colours you can produce by mixing them.
Similar, black and white, not colours in the physical sense of the word (indicating the
absence of colour or the presence of all colour) were important.
o Because the ability of shading any paint by adding black or white to the mix.
Next to basic colours, primary and secondary colours was the notion of a simple colour
which was a colour produced only by one ingredient.
The influence of manufacturing on the nomenclature of colours is also possible to trace in
names where the production of these colours originated from.
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Hence we talk about Saxon green, or Prussian Blue (first manufactured 1707). See
also Cologne earth, or Cassel earth, (both brown).
Now, this is not to say that nomenclature of colours were necessarily stable among
tradesmen and manufacturer.
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While the production of colour contributed to the variation in naming and
understanding of colour and colour production.
Fashion could disturb the order.
Old colours were re-launched with new names, enabling sellers of e.g. textiles to
recycle goods and dies.
The third strand in the discussion of colours in the 18th century emanates from natural
history.
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In fact 18th natural history contributed to the discussion of colours in two ways.
The first was overlapping with the discussion taking place among those focused on
manufacturing.
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Natural history was here a tool with which help the natural world could be explored
so as to find the sources for new dies.
In fact, the objective, to find new sources for colours in the natural world is a very
dominating theme in the natural history discussion of the time.
Secondly, the 18th century saw the development of a more exact language for describing
nature, a development to which the Swedish naturalists Carolus Linnaeus was central.

Linnaeus was careful of using colours to identify for example plants, since he
recognised that the colour of a flower changed depending on where it grew.
Nonetheless naturalists needed to take into account colours and in response to a growing
need to develop a more precise language of colours like:
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the Danish Johan Christian Schäffer or
the German Abraham Gottlob Werner
They created taxonomic colour systems with which help they tried to encourage more exact
descriptions of nature.
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Slide 7
While often rejecting names for colours that evolved within the context of fashion,
e.g. Prussian blue>
Their attempts to creates systems and names for how to mix different colours
contributed to the discussion of colours in the 18th century.
And with this in mind I would like to go back to the list of names in the Swedish Auction
catalogue. First of all, the names used here are part of European, and maybe particularly
French dominated nomenclature for referring to colour.
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Poneceau (French for Poppy)
Couleur de Rose
Couleur de Chair
Paille
Blomerant from French Bleu mourant
Turqvin blue probably from Turquin marble
Mazarin blue, dark blue, named “in honour of “ Cardinal Mazarin, Richelieu’s
predecessor
This pay witness to the influence of French fashion, French silk was high fashion in 18th
century Sweden.
In order to explore this further I searched Svenska akademiens ordbok, SAOB, the
equivalent of Oxford English Dictionary' outlining the etymology of words used in the
Swedish language from 1521.
Searching the terms listed on the handout the proximity natural history, chemistry and
fashion, as discourses, contributing to the nomenclature of colours becomes very clear.
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In many cases, the colour names on my list have their first recorded usage within a
natural history context,
o sky blue for example is first used in 1538, to describe the colour of the lily Iris
germanica.
o Jonquil, similarly, is cross referenced with the plant Narcissus jonquilla.
 The other references to Jonquil is to the flora Swedish Lichens by
Westring, (1805) on here it says it is a colour of a dye that could be
extracted from Bloodspot lichen ("blodplättlav)
A further observation is that when clothes are mentioned, they are in many cases
referring to silk clothes specifically,
o there are for example many references to sky blue silk dresses, pearl grey
stockings etc.
This is not surprising since of course silk textile where the most colourful of the
textiles available to early modern European consumers before Indian cotton fabrics
became available on a broad scale.
But it also raise the question to which extent it was within a area of silk manufacturing and
consumption that the early modern colour nomenclature for bright colour developed.
Robert Finlay, in "Weaving the Rainbow: Visions of color in World HIstory" lists names for
colours used by common people in England at the time, often washed out brown, blues and
grays.
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Here we find names such as "horse flech", "gooseturd", "rat's colour", "peas
porridge" and "puke".
In France we find names such as "flea's belly", "Paris mud" and "goose-droppings".
Maybe needless to say, I have not come across any of these names when I studied
sales catalogues or order lists from the trade with China
About the dating of the colour references: several of the names on my list do only seem to
have come into use in the late 17th and 18th century:
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Poneceau (first used in 1666) and Blomerant (first used in 1665) the first recorded
use of these terms are from the 16660s
Paille first used in 1718
There are no recorded uses of the terms Coul. de Rose until 1778 and Coul. De Chair
until 1801.
In other words my sales catalogue predates the etymology described in SAOB.
Although this is not a solid proof that these terms were not in use before it does suggest
that they were relatively new.
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Another indication of the relative novelty of the terminology in the catalogue is that
there are no references at all in SAOB to the names “Mazarin blue” and “Turquin
blue”.
There could be several reasons for this.
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As we know from previous research from the late 17th century there was a annual
fashion cycle in silk dress-fabric taking place in France and England:
Already in 1680s the East India Company took this into account:
o “Note this is for Constant and General Rule that in all flowred Silkes, you
change ye fashion and flower as much as you can every year, for English
Ladies and they say ye French and other Europeans will give twice as much
for a new thing not seen in Europe before though worse, than they will give
for a better silk of ye same fashion worn ye former yearse.”
(Records of Ford George’s: Despatches from England, 1680-1682, ed. H. Dodwell, Madras 1914, p. 51,
London to Hughly, 20th of May 1681, from John Styles, “Product innovation in Early Modern London, p.
134, foot note 27, see here also references to work by Peter Thornton. See also Nathalie Rothstein who
also argues, the production of silk textiles in 18th century Europe were determined by trends, changing
so frequently that silk manufacturers rarely produced large amount of silk in one design, if it was not
pre-ordered.)
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Maybe the fact that colour terms such as Mazarine blue and Turquin blue are not
picked up is because they were short lasting trends in fashion.
Moreover, as I said initially, much of what was brought to Gothenburg was re-exported.
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The influence of a transnational Europea and particularly French terminology in the
colour nomenclature is therefore not surprising, given the fact that so much of the
stuff brought to Gothenburg was re-exported.
Silk manufacturing in France was of course together with that in England leading the
development in Europe.
A brief comparison the names for colours used in the Swedish catalogue with colour
references used referring to Chinese silk in the other East India Companies we can see that
there is an established international terminology.
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In the ordering lists of EIC we can find the term Sky blue for example.
Here we also have the term Straw coloured, which I assume is the same thing as
Paille, and Mazarine blue.
Bleumerant is one of the most common colour in a Danish sales catalogue from
1756.
There is however a global dimension to the terminology visible in the list of names of
colours to.
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Karmine or Crimson in English, was generally the result of a dye called Kermes, which
was made of the insect Kermococcus vermilis planchon.
It had been used for red colours in the whole of Eurasia since the prehistoric period,
including China.
The dye was called Kermes and many European and Asian languages have a name
for red which is derived from the word kermes, including here Karmine and Crimson
In other words, the nomenclature for colours in the Swedish sales catalogue capture not
only the influence of French Fashion on 18th century Europe
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But also a history of trade dating back many centuries, and stretching over vast
geographical areas.
A note here on the colour of red and yellow, as Meike pointed out to me, these were
actually colours which were reserved for the emperor, and officially no trade in them were
allowed.
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Slide 8
However, as Paul van Dyke has discussed, this did not stop the Canton merchants
from trading in these colours, in fact extensive bribing made this trade very
common.
To which extent it was shared use of dyes, and/or the use of samples, that helped bridge the
understanding of what the European wanted when they made their order to the Hong
merchants in Canton is a question I will return to later on.
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What the auction catalogue however suggest is that the there was a need to
distinguish between not only different colours but also different shades of colours.
There are for example:
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6 different colours of blue (Sky blue, dark blue, mazarine blue, light blue, Blue
Turqvin, and Blomerant)
5 different colours of red including Pink, (Crimson, Scarlet, Poncea, Coloure de Rose,
Colulure the Chair)
3 different colours of grey (Ash coloured, Pearl Coloured, Lead Coloured)
3 different shades of yellow, (Jonquil, Lemon Yellow and Paille)
In this context I think it worth comparing this relatively exact terminology for distinguishing
and defining the colours of Chinese Silk fabric with the references to colours in discussions
about Indian textiles in the EIC.
Here I am drawing on work that Chris, Felicia and Meike and I did last year on the ordering
lists of the EIC, i.e. the correspondence from London to different trading stations in India
about what to buy.
What characterise this discussion is a much more vague language.
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For example and referring to an order of Chintz Ahmadavad, there were requests for
“lively brisk colours (09/10) but nothing more specific.
Sometimes some colours are ruled out, e.g.
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In 09/10 there were request for Chintz, but “no blacks or stripes”
In 1740, in correspondence with the Coromandel coast there were requests for
bright red colour but not “dead brick colour”
In 1740, corresponding with Bengal there were request for Chintz Patna, “all white
ground, part of them with springs and part running work of three colours but none
with yellow in them”
In 1740, about an order for Chintz from Calcutta, it states “to be of good colours
without any green or brick colours”
When colours are referred to they are often only referred to as simply white, green, blue or
red.
Moreover, colour references seem to be used mainly when specifying the grounds of the
textiles, on which patterns were printed or painted.
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And these patterns are often described in very vague tones, often referred to as
either “large” or “small”, or being “running” or “set work”, containing “flowers”,
“sprigs”, “stripes”, “Nosegays”, “Checks”, or simply “Indian Fancy”.
Of course the vagueness of this orders were to a certain degree compensated with the use
of pattern and colour samples, and with references to previous years’ imports.
However, compared to the sales catalogues from Gothenburg, as well as ordering lists from
the other companies, the trade in Chinese Silk comes across as much more standardised
than the trade in Indian textiles.
To anyone familiar with the complexity of names and qualities of Indian textiles for sale in
the 18th century this might come across as a fairly banal conclusion.
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Moreover, Euroasia shared a much longer and richer history of silk production and
consumption. Cotton was not as prominent in Europe before the East India
Companies started trading with India.
However, the conclusion that the trade in Chinese silk was more standardised, might
become more interesting if we pause to think about how colours contributed to the
standardisation.
And in this respect the list of colour names I gave you on the hand out is slightly misleading,
since it does not reflect the proportions of pieces sold in different colours.
Slide 9
Compare for example the colours of the Damask for sale, the most common of the quality of
Chinese silk textile for sale in 1747. All in all this Damast was sold in 21 out of 26 colours.
Slide 10
However, as this diagram might illustrate better, the main bulk of the Damsk for sale was
coloured in one of only 16 colours.
Slide 11
The same goes for the Taffeta, the second most common fabric for sale. It was sold in 17 of
the 26 colours.
Slide 12
But the company held significant holdings in only 15 out of the 26 colours listed.
Slide 13
The Paduasoy however was offered in a greater variety of colours. There were Paduasoy for
sale in 23 of the 26 colours.
Slide 14
And as this diagram illustrate, there was a greater spread.
Slide 15
However, as this last diagram illustrate quite well, most of the textiles from China were
largely in only one out of 16 colours.
Slide 16
We can compare that with the number of colours referred to in the Danish East India
Company’s auction 9 years later, in 1756 here there were only significant holdings in 13
different colours.
Slide 17
So far on the variation of colours that Chinese silk came in.
What is just as important is that the textiles were sold in lots, containing pieces of many
different colours, and they sold for different prices.
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Take for example the 4310 pieces of Damask first listed in the Swedish sales
catalogue.
They were sold in lots of between 29 and 37 pieces, each peice being 16.5 meters
long and (I assume 1.25 meter wide).
Slide 18
The highest price was paid for lots 934-964.
All in all 30 bundles of textiles
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which each contained 31 pieces,
made in 16 different colours.
The lowest price was paid for the last lot,
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which contained 37 pieces,
but which only contained 6 different colours
Slide 19
This way of selling textiles, in lots with several different colours represented, was not I
suspect, unique to Sweden, but did I think represented a common way of selling Asian
textiles at auctions and to wholesalers.
Take e.g. the instructions or orders from London to their different trading posts of the
English East India Company in South Asia.
These orders do not only specifying:
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how much of one specific type of textile they wanted,
the size of the pieces,
which patterns
sometimes also which colour that they should have.
They also contain detailed instructions on how to assemble bales of textiles:
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In the order to Bombay in 1740, to purchase 5000 pieces of Chintz Caddy, it also
state that the order should be made up of:
o One third brown grounds, one sixth white grounds, the remainder in Red
grounds
In the order to Bombay of Chintz Nassermany, in 1740, it states:
o More variety of colours, and one half of the piece in each bale must be of
four colours
In other words:
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Although London don’t specify colours beyond some very rough divisions into red,
blue, brown etc.
But they do give instructions about the proportions of textiles of with different
colours that should be packed into in each bale.
It is the compilation of textiles pieces that seems to be important.
These are just a few examples of many of instructions on how to assemble bales, or chests
with textiles.
It is easy to imagine that these bales or chest were sold as they had been packed in India.
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Each bale containing a variety of pieces, with different patterns and colours.
If this was how textiles were sold whole sale in London it does also become easier to
understand how the warehouses handled all the novelty in patterns that they
constantly requested.
The orders and instructions to South Asia are full of demands for “more new
patterns” and “more variation”
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By selling them in bundles or mini bundles they did not need to be more precise
about exactly what colour or patterns they wanted.
In other words “more was more” in terms of variation of colour and patterns, but only
within the limits of what was contained in each bale.
Pierre Claude Reynard…
Slide 20
Back to Chinese silk then, here the standardization when it comes to color seems to have
gone much further, with the distinct shade of many colours making up the bundles or bales
specified quite exactly.
Maybe we should understand this along the line of how Giorgio Riello analyzes the
European integration of Indian cotton textiles into its consumer market of Europe, with its
expectations of regularly changes to patterns and colours.
There are of course differences:
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First of all Chinese silk of have a much longer history of being consumed by
Europeans than cotton.
Moreover, Europe had a long tradition of domestic silk production, with a
nomenclature for dies and colours attached.
However, the 18th century saw a large increase in the direct trade between Europe and
China, and this shift might have generated a new type of commodification of silk.
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Turning into a type of consumer object which was expected to change quite rapidly,
shifting in shades in such a way to enticing the colour hungry Europeans?
Before I end I would like to highlight some of the questions this work has left me with.
And some thoughts on how one can further illuminate:
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the impact of the trade with Asia on European consumption and
the creation for markets for luxuries and semi luxuries in Europe,
Using sales catalogues and ordering lists from the Scandinavian companies.
When it comes to sources:
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There exists quite a large collection of sales catalogues from the Gothenburgh sales:
o At least up until the end of the second charter, I believe there are sales
catalogues for about 1/3 of all the year.
o Although to which extent they contain information about price the goods
caught and the name of the buyers I don’t know.
The Danish material is less comprehensive when it comes to sales catalogues.
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There is one catalogue from 1756 where the price for about half of all the silk for
sale is listed, as well as the buyers for these lots.
There is however a very rich material generated by the Danish trading in Canton.

The contact between the Danish supercargoes and the Canton merchants have been
document in “Negotiation-protocols”, in which one can trace the ordering of silk
material, qualities and colours.
o These negotiation protocols are available from 1730s when the Danish
company started direct trade with Canton up until the 1830s
o I looked at the negotiation protocol covering the goods for sale in 1756, and
most of the colours that are ordered there are also listed in the sales
catalogue.
o Although the Danish seems not to have got all the blue silk they wanted.
In terms of the order made the negotiation protocols does however not illuminate how the
negotiation with the Hong merchants went.
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Silk orders were placed as soon as possible after arrival to Canton, leaving the
Chinese merchants around 100 days to deliver their goods.
The contract, included in the negotiation protocols does however only list which
colours the different qualities of silk was to be coloured in, ending with a generic
sentence that silk “should be in dyed in the best colour the country of China could
provide”.
There are further notices on the silk once the orders were delivered but for the year
I have studied there is not very much suggesting that the Danish and the Chinese
merchants were disagreeing on the colour scheme.
That this was not always a simple transaction can however be illuminated with other
material, on for example private trade.
Meike Fellinger and I are working on material relating the Scottish supercargo Charles Irvine
who worked for the Swedish East India Company. In fact it is Meike that found this example
for me.
In a letter to Irvine from the whole salers Cossort and Bouver, in 1740, on what silk material
to buy in Canton, we can see how the Europe whole sellers provided Irvine with pattern and
colour samples to bring along.
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The wording of the letter suggests that the wholse salers were very keen that Irvine
was careful matching of what he got in Canton with the samples.

I am hoping to find more material of this kind, hopefully in material generated by
those who were engaged in the whole sellers of silk, frequenting the auctions in
Copenhagen and Gothenburg.
All in all this material would allow for a mapping of the development of colour schemes in
Chinese silk qualities available to the European whole sale market involved in the re-export
of silk from Copenhagen and Gothenburg from the 1730s and onwards.
It might be possible to detect both general trends over the cause of the century:
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Long term changes in what was imported, in terms of qualities and colours,
As well as more short term changes in fashion by looking at the changing
nomenclature for colours.
The material could quite easily be compared to ordering lists and sales catalogues
available for the Dutch, French and English companies
Moreover, the negotiation protocols as well as material generated by whole sellers offers
opportunities to study the more fine grained discussions of colours that took place.
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Both between Chinese and Danish traders in Canton
But also within an European context, among people who knew what to different
European consumers wanted in terms of colours.
References:
Sara Lowengard The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Finlay “Weaving the Rainbow”.
Lillian Li, China's silk Trade