Description

Edited by Gibson Melanie; Edited by Babaie Sussan

Short /annotation
The introduce us on how the movement of Armenian, Indian, Chinese, Persian, Turkishand European merchants and their trade goods during the 17th and 18th centuries spread new ideas and new technologies across Western Asia in the early modern era.

This lavishly illustrated book collects papers delivered at the third Gingko conference: “The Mercantile Effect: On art and exchange in the Islamicate world during 17th ?18th centuries.” Held in Berlin, this meeting brought together a group of established and early-career scholars to discuss how the movement of Armenian, Indian, Chinese, Persian, Turkish, and European merchants and their trade goods spread new ideas and new technologies across Western Asia in the early modern era. Through the newly-established Dutch, English, and French East India companies, as well as much older mercantile networks, prestigious exotic commodities–silk, ivory, books, glazed porcelains–were transported east and west. The collected essays in this volume introduce a fascinating array of not only trade objects but also customs and traditions that bring this period of intense cultural interplay to life.

Review quote
`The avenues which bridged bodies of land and water and across which people, ideas, and artefacts moved, the codes which made communication along these avenues possible, and the outcomes of this movement and communication constitute the little-explored bedrock of early modern history. The material hybrids growing out of this bedrock of transcontinental and transoceanic liquidity are even less understood as they defy disciplinary pigeonholing. The Mercantile Effect captures unexpected glimpses of a vast and shifting landscape and brings them into focus; this is what the future of art history looks like.” George Manginis, Benaki Museum, Athens; `From paper fans and gold watches to aromatics and stimulants, art objects, exotic artefacts but also artists, styles and patterns moved freely between the Ottoman lands, Europe and Western Asia between the 16th to 18th centuries. This fine collection of stimulating essays is a fascinating introduction to some of commodities, tastes and ideas that flowed around the Middle East in the premodern era and proves once again how the study of small-scale artefacts and even everyday items powerfully adds to the larger story of trade and exchange.” Julia GonnellaDirector, Museum of Islamic Art, Doha.

Biographical note
Melanie Gibson is the senior editor of the Gingko Library Arts Series. Sussan Babaie is the Andrew W. Mellon Reader in the Arts of Iran and Islam at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.