Sri Lankan Ivories for the Dutch and Portuguese

Unknown Sri Lankan,  Pipe Case, late 17th century, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Two recently discovered ivory objects carved in Sri Lanka – a pipe case and a sculpture of the Virgin and Child, testify to the sophistication of Sinhalese artistic responses to European trading networks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This essay seeks to contextualize these objects and to highlight the connections between the Portuguese and Dutch empires, normally conceived as separate entities in perennial conflict. Even as scholars turn increasingly to the relationships between the Netherlands and Asia, the limitations of national categories as a means of understanding world trade become evident.

DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2013.5.2.16

Acknowledgements

Respectfully dedicated to a great mentor, Egbert Haverkamp Begemann. I am grateful for the detailed advice and suggestions of Pedro Moura Carvalho; thanks are also due Peter Lee, Michael North, and Stephanie Dickey.

Imprint

Review: Peer Review (Double Blind)
DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2013.5.2.16
License:
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation:
Alan Chong, "Sri Lankan Ivories for the Dutch and Portuguese," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 5:2 (Summer 2013) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2013.5.2.16