Seminars in Global Art History and Heritage
As a follow up to the successful conference “Netherlandish Art and the World” that took place in Utrecht on October 25-27, we would like to invite you to the first meeting of a new series of bi-monthly Seminars in Global Art History and Heritage. This seminar is a cooperation of the NWO-Vidi project “The Chinese Impact” at Utrecht University, Leiden University, and University College Utrecht. It is organized by Mary Bouquet (UCU), Stijn Bussels (LU), and Thijs Weststeijn (UU).
Our first international guest is Dr. Elsje van Kessel (University of St Andrews), who will speak about:
Art, Law, and the Freedom of the Seas in the Early Seventeenth Century
Time and place: Thursday 20 December, 15-17hrs, Vossius Zaal, Leiden University Library
Seating is limited, so please confirm your attendance with Stijn Bussels: s.p.m.bussels@hum.leidenuniv.nl
This paper addresses the relation between art and law in the Mare Liberum/Mare Clausum debate of the early 1600s. The question about the freedom of the world seas – or rather who owns the seas and the material riches that are transported via their waters – occupied the most prominent jurists of the early seventeenth century. As legal historians have recently shown, the debate had its origins in a specific historical event; namely, the Dutch capturing of a Portuguese cargo ship near present-day Singapore in 1603. The vessel, subsequently taken to Amsterdam, was full of spices, textiles, porcelain, precious stones and jewellery, yet accounts of the debate and the legal theory to which it gave rise have ignored these objects. My paper will examine the objects on board the ship in their interaction with this body of legal thought. How did such objects – of a variety of East Asian backgrounds, often produced for export – change as their legal status turned? And can a formal analysis of objects helpfully inform our understanding of categories like ‘booty’ and ‘spoil’?
Image caption: unknown artist, Prospect of Lisbon, 16th century, pen and washed ink drawing on paper, 75 x 245 cm, Leiden, Leiden University Library (detail)
