Browse Items (202 total)

This is a print from the original painting by Joseph Wright depicting a philosopher lecturing on the orrery, or mechanical model of the solar system, and intellectuals used them “as pedagogical devices used exclusively for demonstration” (Barker 31).…

During the 18th century, another example of the phenomenon of chinoiserie, the European interpretation or imitation of Chinese art or other traditions from East Asia, was this vase. The Yuan dynasty experienced technological developments in the…

Francois Boucher, a notable rococo painter of the 18th century, developed a keen interest for ‘the Orient,’ and produced a variety of paintings depicting Chinese subject matter, architecture, and themes. Being an armchair traveler, he based his…

Foreign art objects also piqued the interest of European clientele, and this painting depicts a Chinese porcelain vase in addition to other fruits and items acquired through trade. The painting highlights the assortment of items on the table by…

The interest in botany and accurate renderings of plant life permeated all of Europe, not just in England. In France, Jean Fusée Aublet boasts a collection of almost 400 copperplate engravings showing the Histoire des Plantes de la Guiane françoise…

This collage of colored papers combines to accurately form a sunflower, a flower originally from Mexico that was introduced to Europe in the late 16th century. Botanists and herbalists recorded this flower, and it was grown by John Gerard in 1597 who…

A variety of flora and fauna existed in the New World that differed from European plants and animals. One notable example is the opossum, which, according to Hugh Honour, revealed the “strangeness” of the Americas “while parrots and toucans…

This tapestry was the first work from Florence of a new tapestry workshop founded by Duke Cosimo de’Medici in the 1540s. Around two meters tall, it was likely used as a door hanger, and a later inventory lists it as a “dovizia with a landscape,”…

In 1515, Albrecht Durer, a notable German painter of the Renaissance, produced a woodcut engraving of a rhinoceros that the Sultan of Gujarat gifted to Europe. It made its way to the King of Portugal and almost to Pope Leo X before a shipwreck caused…

This late 16th century German automaton mimics in miniature a masted galleon that would have sailed across the Atlantic to the New World. Designed to carry troops and guns, the actual galleon was specifically manufactured for a European navy with…