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Magazine
Goan links
S. RANGARAJAN
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A recent exhibition in Washington provided a glimpse of ancient trade connections.
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Artwork and furniture that survive from the period attest to the skill of the artists and craftsmen as well as to the richness and rarity of the materials used in their manufacture
Photos: Courtesy National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London and The Freer Gallery of Art
Rare treasures: “Portuguese squadron off a rocky coast”, c. 1521, oil on panel. Below: “Jahangir preferring a Sufi saint to kings”, Mughal school, Opaque watercolour, gold and ink on paper.
When Vasco da Gama sailed into the Indian Ocean in late 1497, he came into contact with an extensive and long-established network of maritime trade connecting ports from East Africa to what is now Indonesia. The countries of the region had a glorious
history of commercial activity.
The Portuguese quickly realised that they had struck a goldmine in trade much vaster in scope than the actual goldmine they were looking for in Africa. They quickly developed a strategy for entering this arena of trade by creating the Estado da India (State of India), a series of trading posts, and vital coastal cities that slowly but ultimately stretched from Mozambique to Macao. The administrative headquarters was in Goa, on the west coast of India.
Trade in luxury items
Even though the Portuguese did not really achieve a monopoly in the spice trade, Portuguese merchants made up for their lack of success in the spice trade by doing tremendously well in luxury goods. Artwork and furniture that survive from the period attest to the extraordinary skills of the artists and craftsmen as well as to the richness and rarity of the materials used in their manufacture.
In addition to serving as headquarters of the Estadao da India, “Golden Goa” was an acknowledged entrepot for costly objects, made locally and elsewhere in India, which were sent to Europe and other Portuguese ports in Asia, Africa and South America.
“Encompassing the globe”, an exhibition organised by the Smithsonian Freer and Sackler Gallery, presented about 250 objects produced by each of the cultures touched by Portugal’s early trade routes.
Initially displayed in princely “cabinets of wonders” — predecessors of the modern museum — and other royal and aristocratic collections and now scattered in museums and private collections throughout the world, the assemblage included exotic Kunstkammer (art chamber in German) objects collected by the Hapsburgs, the Medicis and other royal families, rare 16th century world maps by Portuguese and Florentine cartographers, exquisite ivory hunting horns carved in West and Central Africa, rare terracotta statues and other religious works from 17th century Brazil and scientific instruments created for the Imperial Chinese court by early Jesuit missionaries.
Miniatures painted in the late 16th and 17th centuries by artists of the Mughal court provided an unusual view of the activities of the Portuguese in India, Some of these works depicted historical events in which Portuguese participated. Other Mughal paintings were of identifiable images of Europeans. Still others copied European paintings, prints, and sculpture, especially Christian images brought to the court by the Jesuits.
Sri Lanka, called Ceilao in Portuguese was the source of cinnamon, one of the most sought-after Asian spices. In 1505, a Portuguese fleet that had been blown off course from the Maldive Islands reached Colombo, capital of the kingdom of Kotte in the southwestern part of the island.
By 1518, the Portuguese had constructed a fort in Colombo and eventually established control over all of Kotte until they were displaced by the Dutch in the following century. A work in ivory entitled Nativity (Sri Lanka,1575-1625), occupied an important place in the exhibition besides a casket made in ivory, gold, rubies and sapphires.
In China and Japan
Portugal’s growing maritime commerce in the South China Sea in the mid-16th century necessitated a secure harbour in Chinese territory. In 1557, authorities in Guandong province allowed the Portuguese to start a settlement on the Macao peninsula, near the mouth of the Pearl River.
By the end of the century, Macao had become one of Asia’s great commercial ports. Macao stayed under Portugal’s control until December 1999, when it was formally handed over to China. The Portuguese were also engaged in huge commercial activity in south of Japan. They purchased Chinese goods, principally silks, which were then sold in exchange for silver, extracted from Japan’s rich mines.
As was the case in India and China, a market in objects made specifically for the Portuguese also developed in Japan. European-style serving dishes and furniture, including domed chests in various sizes, richly decorated in Japanese lacquer with gold and silver dust and mother-of-pearl inlays were taken back to Portugal.
The discovery of the new sea lanes not only developed trade and commercial activities (that later led to territorial rivalries), but also set in motion an exchange of scientific ideas between Europe and Asia.
Shipment of animals
Exotic animals were the most spectacular of the contributions the Portuguese made to Europe’s growing knowledge of the world. Lions were kept in some menageries, and a few African elephants are known to have reached medieval Europe, but the new Portuguese sea route to India greatly facilitated the shipment of wild animals.
The most celebrated elephant to reach 16th-century Lisbon was Hanno, an albino elephant from Sri Lanka, sent to Rome in 1514 by King Manuel I as a gift for Pope Leo X.
Hanno was to be joined there by a rhinoceros that arrived in Lisbon the following year, but this unfortunate animal drowned when the ship sank in a storm. But he achieved fame in Europe through a woodcut published by Albrecht Durer, the renowned German engraver.
The crucial Goanese connection in “Encompassing the Globe” was highlighted by Goan music and dance in a finale by the Ekvat Ensemble. Violins and guitars mixed with Indian percussion and Konkani language to recreate the 450-year-old link between Goa and Portugal before Goa rejoined India in 1961. The 17-members of the Ekvat Ensemble came from Lisbon’s community of more than 100,000. Goans.
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