The Persian Madonna and Child: commodified gifts between diplomacy and armed struggle

• Autores: Sinem Arcak Casale
• Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 38, Nº. 4, 2015 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Objects in motion in the early modern world / coord. por Daniela Bleichmar, Meredith Martin), págs. 636-651
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • A gold-embroidered velvet featuring a repeating pattern of the nursing Madonna was among the gifts sent by Shah 'Abbas to the Venetian doge in 1603. Taking this luxury silk textile as its point of departure, this essay considers Safavid embassies to Europe at the turn of the seventeenth century againts the background of the Safavid king's innovative attempt to create a royal silk monopoly on the one hand, and on the other, his quest to alter the established course of the silk route through Ottoman lands. By placing such custommade gifts in a triangular network of diplomatic and commercial exchange, this essay argues that at the turn of the seventeenth century, the shah was setting in motion objects that oscillated between the categories of gist and commodity.