Gender, Materiality, and the 'Exotic'
Display Strategies at the Danish and Dutch Courts, c. 1600–1700
This project explores the female elite at seventeenth-century Danish and Netherlandish courts and their strategies of political representation and formation through the collecting and display of “exotic” objects and ornaments.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
During the early modern period interior spaces were instrumental in establishing and displaying legitimate rulership. In this context, “exotic” objects played a significant role. At the center of this project will be the collectors’ strategies for obtaining foreign, “exotic” objects and for displaying them to show off their splendor and their brilliant surfaces, and also the ways in which these objects were combined and framed in specific interiors at the Dutch and Danish courts. It is situated within a broad interdisciplinary methodological framework, combining in-depth analysis of travelogues, inventories, and sets of correspondence with an object-oriented approach, which pays special attention to the display and sensuous experiences of female power at court.
AIM OF THE PROJECT
Throughout the project, the objects, images and interior spaces are understood as mediators (between different material and knowledge cultures, between male and female domains) and will be investigated as expressions of female power, splendour and virtue. The project aims to shed further light on female strategies of collecting and display in a variety of aristocratic settings, thereby documenting the importance of cultural exchanges between Denmark and the Netherlands.
RESEARCHERS
Michèle Seehafer
M.Seehafer@rijksmuseum.nl
Postdoc fellow
Jan van Campen
J.van.Campen@rijksmuseum.nl
Curator of Asian Export Art
PARTNERS AND SPONSORS
This Fellowship is made possible by the National Museum of History of Denmark, and is part of the Rijksmuseum Fellowship Programme.