Supply on Demand?

This chapter considers how women’s representations of the acquisition, migration, and production of art objects and antiquities in Eastern countries contributed to geo-political propaganda and the development of a bespoke strand of political economic discourse pertaining to the production and trade of art. Taking an object-oriented approach, I will examine women’s participation in and analysis of illicit and predatory trading practices in Egypt, China, and Japan, and how their accounts expose sordid details of the trade networks that moved art and antiquities into the Western collectors’ markets. While some attempt to raise sympathy for the working-classes placed at risk by these networks, many are complicit in the British government’s attempts to exploit the resources of politically and socially vulnerable countries like Egypt and China. The women engage closely with developing capitalist and proto-socialist theories of ‘value’, pleasure in labour, and supply and demand to compare the economic benefits of industrialisation with the cultural importance of traditional craftsmanship across the century; inspired by the balance of tradition and modernity observed in Japan’s art export industry, mid- and late-Victorian accounts present a modified vision of capitalism where cultural authenticity is a key component of sustainable economic progress.