ISBN: 9781909942301

Paperback: 180 pages (100 illustrations)
Publisher: Gingko Library, 2017
Language: English

This beautifully illustrated volume publishes a group of 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 in 2016, 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. Operating through the newly-established Dutch, English and French East India companies, as well as much older mercantile networks, prestigious exotic commodities: silk, ivory, books and glazed porcelains were transported east and west. The collected essays in this volume introduce a fascinating array of subjects, all of them indicative of the impact of transcultural exchanges during the 17th and 18th centuries.