Indian Jewellery and the Portuguese (Lecture) - Doha, Qatar - 14-1-2020

[dognose]

Museum of Islamic Art
Doha, Qatar

Indian Jewellery and the Portuguese during the Rise of the Mughal Empire

with Hugo Miguel Crespo, Researcher at the Centre of History for the University of Lisbon

14 January 2020, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

For the final lecture in celebration of the Qatar India Year of Culture and our special exhibition, we are delighted to welcome Hugo Miquel Crespo. Hugo specialises in Portuguese Renaissance material culture and Asian decorative arts made for export to the European market during the Age of Discovery. In 2014, he curated an exhibition in Museu do Oriente in Lisbon on the Jewels from the India Run and his most recent publication is “The Plundering of the Ceylonese Royal Treasury, 1551–1553: Its Character, Cost, and Dispersal” in Gems in the Early Modern World: Materials, Knowledge and Global Trade, 1450-1800.

This lecture will cover the Portuguese voyages of exploration which culminated in the establishment of an annual maritime route to India and dramatically increased European access to gemstones, namely to the famous Golconda diamonds. This period, which witnessed the rise of the Mughals, was also a time when Indian jewellery first arrived Europe via the India Run. Conversely, the arrival of exotic European objects from Goa at the court of Akbar caused a sensation and had a profound and lasting influence on Mughal courtly art, as did the introduction of European jewellery and lapidary techniques.

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