Past events

In March 2019, Sussan Babaie (The Courtauld Institute) presented a talk entitled ‘Seeing Taste: Art, Cuisine and Urbanity in Safavid Persia/Iran’ as part of the Sydney Asian Art Series.

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Gilded glass bottles blown in India and porcelain flasks produced in Japan circulated around the Indian Ocean, filled with aromatic oils and packaged in custom-made boxes. These fragrant items were doled out as gifts by the Dutch East India Company, distributed to gain commercial leverage with high-profile recipients across an arena that stretched from the mountains of Ethiopia to the Qing Emperor’s court.

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In 1611, the East India Company in London planned a voyage to Japan, hoping finally to read that rich and fabled land. An appropriate gift was selected for the Japanese ruler, and when one of the ships duly arrived in 1613, Tokugawa Ieyasu was presented with a large, silver-gilt telescope, in the name of King James. It was the first telescope ever to leave Europe and the first built as a presentation object. Before news of this success was reported home, the English sent another ship, this time loaded with oil paintings and prints.

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A lecture about the transcultural exchanges between an Indian dancer and an United States photographer.

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The Chinese painter known to Europeans as “Lam Qua” was one of the most well-documented artisans working in the port of Guangzhou in the early 19th century. A practitioner of studio portraiture who painted many Europeans and Americans in oil on canvas, he has been portrayed variously as a mere servant to the British painter George Chinnery, a cool operator of an international port market, or a precocious appropriator of European artistic techniques and styles.

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A lecture examining the historical unfolding of the Buddha’s story in Cambodia.

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A symposium examining the intersection of gender and art history in Southeast Asian societies.

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