The art of the dealers
Who doesn’t like a good story about art, international espionage, and global commerce? Consider this one. In 1765, the French government of Louis XV dispatched two emissaries to China with six large tapestries intended for the Qianlong emperor. In theory, this was a gesture of Enlightenment universalism by France’s minister of state, Henri-Leonard Bertin. In reality, the aim of the mission was closer to industrial espionage. The envoys were two Chinese Catholics, Aloys Ko and Etienne Yang, who were traveling home after over a decade in France. Bertin wanted them to send him trade secrets, about canals, military technology, and especially Chinese porcelain. Global markets and power were at stake. Ko and Yang were only partly successful. They sent back much new information but could not help engineer a French-Chinese alliance to hem in Russia, as Bertin wanted. Yang was even imprisoned for proselytizing at one point. French goods did not...