ABSTRACT
Chinese export porcelain constitutes one of the largest groups of artifacts recovered from archeological sites in Southeastern Virginia and is present on nearly all colonial sites so far dug in the James River basin. The artifact, the Chinese exportware shard, or whole vessel with a history of Virginia ownership, is a physical manifestation of numerous facets of eighteenth-century society. Its presence in Virginia is eloquent testimony to a pattern of world trade as intricate as the complex intellectual network of the Enlightenment. The presence of eighteenth-century Chinese porcelain shards at colonial sites in Virginia bespeaks the growing gentility of colonial society, a gentility evinced in the decoration of the colonials’ houses and the growing popularity of such social ceremonies as tea and coffee drinking. The increasing use of Chinese porcelain, reflected in contemporary inventories and in Virginia’s archeological collections, attests to the growing affluence of Virginians in the eighteenth-century.
