Helen Jacobsen
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693757
- eISBN:
- 9780191731976
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693757.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Cultural History
Seventeenth-century diplomacy was a very visual form of politics and luxury consumption was integral to its conduct. English diplomats abroad were exposed to the very highest levels of expenditure on ...
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Seventeenth-century diplomacy was a very visual form of politics and luxury consumption was integral to its conduct. English diplomats abroad were exposed to the very highest levels of expenditure on architecture and the arts by foreign monarchs; this book seeks to look beyond the public displays and to ascertain whether the ambassadors’ own lives were affected by the conspicuous consumption with which they were surrounded. A marked similarity between the evolution of diplomatic theory and the evolution of a diplomat’s material world is revealed. The extent to which diplomats acted as conduits for objects, paintings, artists, and craftsmen is demonstrated, and how their experiences abroad impacted on their subsequent consumption and patronage. Conspicuous consumption of foreign luxury goods is posited firmly in the political sphere.Less
Seventeenth-century diplomacy was a very visual form of politics and luxury consumption was integral to its conduct. English diplomats abroad were exposed to the very highest levels of expenditure on architecture and the arts by foreign monarchs; this book seeks to look beyond the public displays and to ascertain whether the ambassadors’ own lives were affected by the conspicuous consumption with which they were surrounded. A marked similarity between the evolution of diplomatic theory and the evolution of a diplomat’s material world is revealed. The extent to which diplomats acted as conduits for objects, paintings, artists, and craftsmen is demonstrated, and how their experiences abroad impacted on their subsequent consumption and patronage. Conspicuous consumption of foreign luxury goods is posited firmly in the political sphere.
Susan Mokhberi
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190884796
- eISBN:
- 9780190884826
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190884796.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, Middle East History
The Persian Mirror explores France’s preoccupation with Persia in the seventeenth century. Long before Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, French intellectuals, diplomats, and even ordinary Parisians were ...
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The Persian Mirror explores France’s preoccupation with Persia in the seventeenth century. Long before Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, French intellectuals, diplomats, and even ordinary Parisians were fascinated by Persia and eagerly consumed travel accounts, fairy tales, and the spectacle of the Persian ambassador’s visit to Paris and Versailles in 1715. Using diplomatic sources, fiction, and printed and painted images, The Persian Mirror describes how the French came to see themselves in Safavid Persia. In doing so, it revises our notions of Orientalism and the exotic and suggests that early modern Europeans had more nuanced responses to Asia than previously imagined.Less
The Persian Mirror explores France’s preoccupation with Persia in the seventeenth century. Long before Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, French intellectuals, diplomats, and even ordinary Parisians were fascinated by Persia and eagerly consumed travel accounts, fairy tales, and the spectacle of the Persian ambassador’s visit to Paris and Versailles in 1715. Using diplomatic sources, fiction, and printed and painted images, The Persian Mirror describes how the French came to see themselves in Safavid Persia. In doing so, it revises our notions of Orientalism and the exotic and suggests that early modern Europeans had more nuanced responses to Asia than previously imagined.
