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During the early modern period, objects of maritime material culture were removed from their places of origin and traded, collected and displayed worldwide. Focusing on shells and pearls exchanged within local and global networks, this monograph compares and connects Asian, in particular Chinese, and European practices of oceanic exploitation in the framework of a transcultural history of art with an understanding of maritime material culture as gendered. Perceiving the ocean as mother of all things, as womb and birthplace, Chinese and European artists and collectors exoticized and eroticized shells' shapes and surfaces. Defining China and Europe as spaces entangled with South and Southeast Asian sites of knowledge production, source and supply between 1500 and 1700, the book understands oceanic goods and maritime networks as transcending and subverting territorial and topographical boundaries. It also links the study of globally connected port cities to local ecologies of oceanic exploitation and creative practices.
List of contents
Introduction, 1 Shell Connections: The Exoticization and Eroticization of Asian Maritime Material Culture, From Guangzhou to Florence: Parrot Cups as Actors, Layers of Exoticization: Chinese and European Shell Surfaces, Surfaces and Skins: The European Eroticization of Asian Shells, Conclusion - Shell Connections, 2 Shell Bodies: The Creative Agency of Molluscs across Cultures, Clever Objects, Shell Agency, Clam Creations, Female Features, Bird Bodies, Cultured Connections, Conclusion, 3 Shell Worlds: Maritime Microcosms in EurAsian Art and Material Culture, Shells in Flux, Coralscapes, Conclusion, 4 Woman with a Shell: Transcultural Exchange, Female Bodies and Maritime Matters, Women on Shells, Women in Shells, Women with Shells, Women with EurAsian Shells, Conclusion - Woman with a Shell, Conclusion, Cited Primary and Secondary Sources, Acknowledgments, Index
About the author
Anna Grasskamp is Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Oslo. She co-edited
EurAsian Matters: China, Europe, and the Transcultural Object, 1600-1800 (2018) and is the author of
Objects in Frames: Displaying Foreign Collectibles in Early Modern China and Europe (2019).
