Vermeer's Hat (33 page)

The destruction of natural habitat in fifteenth-century Europe is noted in David Levine,
At the Dawn of Modernity: Biology, Culture, and Material Life in Europe After the Year 1000
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), pp. 153–55.

On Champlain’s quest for saltwater in 1603, see
Works of Samuel de Champlain
, vol. 1, pp. 156–62.

Champlain’s maps are examined in Conrad Heidenreich and Edward Dahl, “Samuel de Champlain’s Cartography,” in
Champlain: The Birth of French America
, pp. 312–32; see also Christian Morissonneau, “Champlain’s Place-Names,” op. cit., pp. 218–29.

The standard account of the travels of Jean Nicollet (also spelled Nicolet) as having paddled to Green Bay is repeated in my
Confusions of Pleasure
, p. xv. I now accept the correction that Nicollet went to Lake Nipigon rather than Green Bay, as proposed by Gaétan Gervais in his “Champlain and Ontario (1603–35),” in
Champlain: The Birth of French America
, p. 189. For early maps that name Green Bay as Baye des Puans, see Derek Hayes,
Historical Atlas of the United States
(Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2006), pp. 38, 41, 90, 92, 94.

A post-contact epidemic among the Winnebagoes is mentioned by Wilcomb Washburn in
The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas
, vol. 1, pt. 2, p.409.

For “glorious Vests, wrought & embroidered on cloth of Gold,” see John Evelyn,
The Diary of John Evelyn
(Oxford: Claendon, 1955), vol. 2, pp. 460–61, writing of what he saw in 1664.

De la Franchise’s poetic dedication to Champlain’s
On Savages
of 1603 appears in
Works of Samuel de Champlain
, vol. 1, p. 86.

CHAPTER 3. A DISH OF FRUIT

Most of the information about the
White Lion
is taken from the excavation report of the Groupe de Recherche Archéologique Sous-Marine Post-Médiévale,
The Ceramic Load of the ‘Witte Leeuw’ (1613)
, ed. C. L. van der Pijl-Ketel (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1982). The price of pepper is from Posthumus,
Inquiry into the History of Prices in Holland
, vol. 1, p. 174. Information about the voyages of VOC ships comes from Bruijn, et al.,
Dutch-Asiatic Shipping
, vol. 1, pp. 74, 86, 89, 91, 188, 192; vol. 2, pp. 12,18, 22, 26; and vol. 3, pp. 8, 12–13, 16–17. A complete catalog of VOC ships is available online at
www.vocsite.nl/schepen.

The Portuguese carracks are listed in A. R. Disney,
Twilight of the Pepper Empire: Portuguese Trade in Southwest India in the Early Seventeenth Century
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 172. Van der Pijl-Keter identifies the
Nossa Senhora do Monte da Carmo
as the
Nossa Senhora de Conceição
.

Information on Dutch maritime trade has been taken from C. R. Boxer,
The Dutch Seaborne Empire: 1600
–
1800
(New York: Knopf, 1965), pp. 22–25; Kristof Glamann,
Dutch-Asiatic Trade, 1620
–
1740
(1958; rev. ed., Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981), pp. 16–20, 57–59, 112–18, 134, 153; Els Jacobs,
In Pursuit of Pepper and Tea: The Story of the Dutch East India Company
(Amsterdam: Netherlands Maritime Museum, 1991), pp. 11–12, 51–53, 73–74, 84–95; Dietmar Rothermund,
Asian Trade and European Expansion in the Age of Mercantilism
(New Delhi: Manohar, 1981), especially pp. 27–30; and Niels Steensgaard,
The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 101–113. The close to 3 percent growth rate in Dutch imports is given in Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, “After Columbus: Explaining Europe’s Overseas Trade Boom, 1500–1600,”
Journal of Economic History
62:2 ( June 2002), p. 419. The
Wapen van Delft
voyages are noted in A. J. H. Latham and Heita Kawakatsu, eds.,
Japanese Industrialization and the Asian Economy
(New York: Routledge, 1994), app. 2.1. The effects of this trade are explored in Violet Barbour,
Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963), pp. 35–41; and Om Prakash, “Restrictive Trading Regimes: VOC and the Asian Spice Trade in the Seventeenth Century,” in
Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, c. 1400
–
1750
, ed. Roderick Ptak and Dietmar Rothermund (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1991), pp. 107–126.

The
Red Lion
in Japan in 1609 is mentioned in Boxer,
Jan Compagnie in Japan
, p. 27. For the two ships named
China
, see Bruijn et al.,
Dutch Asiatic Shipping
, vol. 2, pp. 22–23,196.

On the history of Dutch porcelain imports, see T. Volker,
Porcelain and the Dutch East India Company, 1602
–
1682
(Leiden: Brill, 1954); Maura Rinaldi,
Kraak Porcelain: A Moment in the History of Trade
(London: Bamboo, 1989); Christian J. A. Jörg, “Chinese Porcelain for the Dutch in the Seventeenth Century: Trading Networks and Private Enterprise,” in
The Porcelains of Jingdezhen
, ed. Rosemary Scott (London: Percival Foundation of Chinese Art, 1993), pp. 183–205; and John Carswell,
Blue & White: Chinese Porcelain Around the World
(London: British Museum Press, 2000). On Sino-Persian interaction in porcelain design, see Lisa Golombek, “Rhapsody in Blue-and-White,”
Rotunda
36:1 (Summer/Fall 2003), pp. 22–23.

The development of porcelain production in Europe is described in Hugh Honour,
Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay
(New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 103–5.

Grotius’s quotations are taken from
The Freedom of the Seas
, trans. Ralph Van Deman Magoffin (Toronto: H. Milford, 1916), pp. 12–13; see also Hamilton Vreeland,
Hugo Grotius, the Father of the Modern Science of International Law
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1917), pp. 47–58.

The 1608 porcelain order is mentioned in Volker,
Porcelain and the Dutch East India Company
, p. 23. The Portuguese commissioning of export porcelain is treated in Rui Guedes,
Companhia das Índias: porcelanas
[Company of the Indies: Porcelains] (Lisbon: Bertrand, 1995). For the cargo of the
Nassau
, see “Cargo van twee Oost-Indische Shepen” [Cargo of Two East India (Company) Ships] (Amsterdam: Gerrit Jansz, 1640), on display at Amsterdam’s Maritime Museum.

Wen Zhenheng’s comments in this chapter are taken from his
A Treatise on Superfluous Things, Annotated
[
Zhangwu lun jiaozhu
], ed. Chen Zhi (Nanjing: Jiangsu kexue jishu chubanshe, 1984), pp. 97 (preference for earlier Ming porcelain), 260 (brush pots), 317 (ideal characteristics), 352 (use of vases), and 419 (Potter Cui). The logic of the book is explored in Clunas,
Superfluous Things
; see in particular his comments on foreign objects on pp. 58–60,85. The Beijing guidebook comment comes from Liu Tong,
Sights of the Imperial Capital
[
Dijing jingwu lüe
] (Beijing: Beijing guji chubanshe, 1980), p. 163. Reports of kraak porcelain in Chinese tombs appeared in the journal
Cultural Objects
[
Wen wu
], 1982, no. 8, pp. 16–28, and 1993, no. 2, pp. 77–82; my thanks to Craig Clunas for pointing out these references.

For a seventeenth-century comment on the European taste for gold and silver dishes, see Pascale Girard, ed.,
Le Voyage en Chine d’Adriano de las Cortes S. J. (1625)
(Paris: Chandeigne, 2001), p. 253.

Descartes’s comment of 1631 is quoted in Fernand Braudel,
The Perspective of the World
(London: Collins, 1984), p. 30. For Evelyn’s comment on Paris in 1644, see
Diary of John Evelyn
, vol. 2, p. 100.

Pieter Isaacsz’s 1599 painting,
The Corporalship of Captain G. Jasz. Valckenier and Lieutenant P. Jacobsz Bas
, is cited, among others, in A. I. Spriggs, “Oriental Porcelain in Western Paintings, 1450–1700,”
Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society
vol. 36 (London: 1965).

For a quick sketch of the history of Delft tiles, see Bailey,
Vermeer
, pp. 173–77; the quote appears on p. 175. The Amsterdam satirist on Chinese art is mentioned in Edwin Van Kley, “Qing Dynasty China in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Literature, 1644–1760” in
The History of the Relations Between the Low Countries and China in the Qing Era (1644–1911)
, ed. W. F. Vande Walk and Nöel Golvers (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), p. 230. On the use of abandoned Delft breweries as potteries, see Richard Unger,
A History of Brewing in Holland: Economy, Technology and the State
(Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 324.

Li Rihua’s discussion with Merchant Xia appears in his
Diary from the Water-Tasting Studio
[
Weishui xuan riji
] (Shanghai: Yuandong chubanshe, 1996), p. 84.

Lam’s exploits in 1617–18 were noted by the English factor in Hirado, Richard Cocks; see William Schurz,
The Manila Galleon
(New York: Dutton, 1959), p. 352.

CHAPTER 4. GEOGRAPHY LESSONS

Las Cortes’s account of the shipwreck of 1625 has been published in French by Pascale Girard as
Le Voyage en Chine
. I have drawn particularly from pp. 37–55, 65–69, 85–87, 97, 106–9, 354–57.

On the concept of “Moor” in the seventeenth century, see Allison Blakely,
Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 33–36; Kim Hall,
Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 12.

The Chinese description of Spaniards in Macao is from Yin Guangren and Zhang Rulin,
A Brief Account of Macao
[
Aomen jilüe
] (1751; 1800), 2.8b. Li Rihua’s description of
luting
appears in his
Diary from the Water-Tasting Studio
, p. 103; for his description of Red Hairs, see p. 43. Wang Shixing’s account of blacks in Macao comes from his
Continuation of My Record of Extensive Travels
[
Guangzhi yi
] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), p. 101. The price of oxen (four taels a head) is noted in C. R. Boxer,
The Great Ship from Amacon: Annals of Macao and the Old Japan Trade
(Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1959), p. 184.

Lu Zhaolong’s memorials appear in the
Unedited records of the Chongzhen Era
[
Chongzhen changbian
], 34.42a–44a, 35,41.13a–14b, and 43.29a–b; reprinted in
Compendium of Archives and Documents on the Macao question in the Ming-Qing Period
[
Ming-Qing shiqi Aomen wenti dang’an wenxian huibian
], ed. Yang Jibo et al. (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999), vol. 5, pp. 41–45. See also Huang Yi-long, “Sun Yuanhua (1581–1632): A Christian Convert Who Put Xu Guangqi’s Military Reform Policy into Practice,” in
Statecraft and Intellectual Renewal in Late Ming China: The Cross-Cultural Synthesis of Xu Guangqi
, ed. Catherine Jami, Gregory Blue, and Peter Engelfriedt (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 239–42.

The account of Holland in the Veritable Records appears in the fourth lunar month of 1623, in
Veritable Records of the Tianqi Reign
[
Xizong shilu
], 33.3a–b.

The quote from Dai Zhuo is recorded in the fourth chapter of Wang Linheng,
The Swords of Canton
[
Yuejian pian
], quoted in Tang Kaijian,
Studies in the Early History of the Opening of the Port of Macao
[
Aomen kaipu chuqi shi yanjiu
] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999), p. 113.

On the recruitment of Portuguese gunners, see Michael Cooper,
Rodrigues the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan and China
(New York: Weatherhill, 1994), pp. 337–51. The composition of the 1623 party is described in the Veritable Records of that year,
Veritable Records of the Tianqi Reign
, 33.13a. Yan Junyan’s undated comment on Rodrigues appears in his
Case Summaries from Mengshui Studio
[
Mengshui zhai cundu
] (Beijing: Zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe, 2002), p. 704. Lu Zhaolong’s warm endorsement in his preface to Yan’s book shows they were friends. I am grateful to Alison Bailey for introducing me to Yan’s book. Rodrigues is mentioned in the
Veritable Records
of 1630 [
Chongzhen changbian
], ch. 44, reprinted in
The Macao Question in the Ming-Qing Period
, vol. 5, p. 45.

On Xu Guangqi, see Jami et al.,
Statecraft and Intellectual Renewal in Late Ming China.
On Xu’s interest in Japan, see my “Japan in the Late Ming: The View from Shanghai,” in
Sagacious Monks and Bloodthirsty Warriors: Chinese Views of Japan in the Ming-Qing Period
, ed. Joshua A. Fogel (Norwalk, CT: EastBridge, 2002), pp. 42–62.

The classic study of Shen Que’s attack on the Nanjing mission is Edward Kelly, “The Anti-Christian Persecution of 1616–1617 in Nanking” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1971), key points of which have been revised by Adrian Dudink, “Christianity in Late Ming China: Five Studies” (Ph.D. diss., Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden, 1995). The Jesuit assessment of Shen Que’s persecution as having failed is repeated in George Dunne,
Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962), pp. 128–45. Semedo’s description is taken from the 1642 English edition of his history of the Jesuit mission,
Imperio de la Chinae
[Empire of China], pp. 219–20; I am grateful to Gregory Blue for making this passage available to me.

On the early Dutch trade with China, see Leonard Blussé, “The VOC as Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Stereotypes and Social Engineering on the China Coast,” in
Leyden Studies in Sinology
, ed. W. L. Idema (Leiden: Brill, 1981), especially pp. 92–95.