Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World (The Early Modern Americas)

In the early modern age more people traveled farther than at any earlier time in human history. Many returned home with stories of distant lands and at least some of the objects they collected during their journeys. And those who did not travel eagerly acquired wondrous materials that arrived from faraway places. Objects traveled various routes―personal, imperial, missionary, or trade―and moved not only across space but also across cultures. Histories of the early modern global culture of collecting have focused for the most part on European Wunderkammern , or "cabinets of curiosities." But the passion for acquiring unfamiliar items rippled across many lands. The court in Java marveled at, collected, and displayed myriad goods brought through its halls. African princes traded captured members of other African groups so they could get the newest kinds of cloth produced in Europe. Native Americans sought colored glass beads made in Europe, often trading them to other indigenous groups. Items changed hands and crossed cultural boundaries frequently, often gaining new and valuable meanings in the process. An object that might have seemed mundane in some cultures could become a target of veneration in another. The fourteen essays in Collecting Across Cultures represent work by an international group of historians, art historians, and historians of science. Each author explores a specific aspect of the cross-cultural history of collecting and display from the dawn of the sixteenth century to the early decades of the nineteenth century. As the essays attest, an examination of early modern collecting in cross-cultural contexts sheds light on the creative and complicated ways in which objects in collections served to create knowledge―some factual, some fictional―about distant peoples in an increasingly transnational world.

In the early modern age more people traveled farther than at any earlier time in human history. Many returned home with stories of distant lands and at least some of the objects they collected during their journeys. And those who did not travel eagerly acquired wondrous materials that arrived from faraway places. Objects traveled various routes—personal, imperial, missionary, or trade—and moved not only across space but also across cultures.

Histories of the early modern global culture of collecting have focused for the most part on European Wunderkammern, or "cabinets of curiosities." But the passion for acquiring unfamiliar items rippled across many lands. The court in Java marveled at, collected, and displayed myriad goods brought through its halls. African princes traded captured members of other African groups so they could get the newest kinds of cloth produced in Europe. Native Americans sought colored glass beads made in Europe, often trading them to other indigenous groups. Items changed hands and crossed cultural boundaries frequently, often gaining new and valuable meanings in the process. An object that might have seemed mundane in some cultures could become a target of veneration in another.

The fourteen essays in Collecting Across Cultures represent work by an international group of historians, art historians, and historians of science. Each author explores a specific aspect of the cross-cultural history of collecting and display from the dawn of the sixteenth century to the early decades of the nineteenth century. As the essays attest, an examination of early modern collecting in cross-cultural contexts sheds light on the creative and complicated ways in which objects in collections served to create knowledge—some factual, some fictional—about distant peoples in an increasingly transnational world.

Contents List of Illustrations Foreword • Malcolm Baker Introduction I. COLLECTING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD 1. Seeing the World in a Room: Looking at Exotica in Early Modern Collections • Daniela Bleichmar 2. Collecting Global Icons: The Case of the Exotic Parasol • Benjamin Schmidt 3. Ancient Europe and Native Americans: A Comparative Reflection on the Roots of Antiquarianism • Alain Schnapp II. COLLECTING AND THE FORMATION OF GLOBAL NETWORKS 4. Aztec Regalia and the Reformation of Display • Carina L. Johnson 5. Dead Natures or Still Lifes? Science, Art, and Collecting in the Spanish Baroque • José Ramón Marcaida and Juan Pimentel 6. Crying a Muck: Collecting, Domesticity, and Anomie in Seventeenth-Century Banten and England • Robert Batchelor 7. Collecting and Translating Knowledge Across Cultures: Capuchin Missionary Images of Early Modern Central Africa, 1650–1750 • Cécile Fromont 8. European Wonders at the Court of Siam • Sarah Benson III. COLLECTING PEOPLE 9. Collecting and Accounting: Representing Slaves as Commodities in Jamaica, 1674–1784 • Trevor Burnard 10. “Collecting Americans”: The Anglo-American Experience from Cabot to NAGPRA • Peter C. Mancall IV. EUROPEAN COLLECTIONS OF AMERICANA IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES 11. Spanish Collections of Americana in the Late Eighteenth Century • Paz Cabello Carro 12. Martínez compañón and His Illustrated “Museum” • Lisa Trever and Joanne Pillsbury 13. Europe Rediscovers Latin America: Collecting Artifacts and Views in the First Decades of the Nineteenth Century • Pascal Riviale 14. Image and Experience in the Land of Nopal and Maguey: Collecting and Portraying Mexico in Two Nineteenth-Century French Albums • Megan E. O’Neil Notes List of Contributors Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Acknowledgments "The fourteen essays in Collecting Across Cultures represent new work by an international group of historians, art historians, and historians of science. Each author explores a specific aspect of the cross-cultural history of collecting and display from the dawn of the sixteenth century to the early decades of the nineteenth century. As the essays attest, an examination of early modern collecting in cross-cultural contexts sheds light on the creative and complicated ways in which objects in collections served to create knowledge - some factual, some fictional - about distant peoples in an increasingly transnational world."-- Publisher's website. Main description: Authored by historians, art historians, and historians of science working in the United States, Europe, and South America, each of the fourteen essays in Collecting Across Cultures explores a specific aspect of the history of collecting, collections, or collectors in the early modern period