ABSTRACT
In the seventeenth century, the long-established international ceramic trade of the Far East and South-East Asia entered a fast-paced and changeable era. The elements involved - the suppliers, the merchants and the markets - were different from those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. China had been the sole exporter of porcelain and stoneware for many decades before Japan became a supplier in the midseventeenth century. Western European trading corporations tried, but largely failed, to restrict indigenous mercantile activity, much of it in Chinese hands. Europe and the Americas became new markets for Asian ceramics. Some of these changes were no doubt part of the larger pattern of the new Asian-European commercial relationship but some were unique to the ceramic trade.
