1 / Converging Cultures

• • Traveling CofferOu family of Wenzhou, Zhehian Province, China	The Sultan Mehmet IIAttr. to Gentile Bellini (Italian, ca. 1429–1507)	Saltcellar with Portuguese FiguresEdo artist, Court of Benin, Nigeria	Namban (“Southern Barbarians” in Japan)Kano School, Japan	Dish with Grape DesignUnknown artist, Iznik, Turkey	The FittingMary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926)
    Human Races (Las Castas)Unknown artist, Mexico	Pelea de Gallos (Fight of the Roosters)Miguel Luciano (Puerto Rican, b. 1972)	Chi Kan Jo (Wisdom, Impression, Sentiment)Kuroda Seiki (Japanese, 1866–1924)	Miss ko2 (Project ko2)Takashi Murakami (Japanese, b. 1962)	Pilgrim FlaskUnknown artist, Venice, Italy	Porcelain PlateUnknown artist, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China
    Portrait of East India Company Official (probably William Fullerton)Dip Chand (Indian, active 18th c.)	Double-Sided DiptychGondar Workshops, Ethiopia	Our Lady of Cocharcas Under the BaldachinUnknown artist, Peru	Chûbon no zu (Picture of the Middle Class)Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753–1806)

expert perspective

Alan Chong Curator of the Collection, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

“

In the fifteenth century, as Venice began to expand its trading empire, it came into conflict with the Ottomans. The Ottomans were an Islamic dynasty. There are craftsmen from the East who are brought to Venice to produce metalwork and glass. Beautiful trays and vessels that were produced in what is now Lebanon and Syria were eagerly imported to Venice. Islamic glass was seen as so sophisticated in terms of coloring and lightness and shape. And immediately after glass was imported, it starts being copied by the glass makers in Murano. Venetian glass not only copies Islamic forms, it is quickly regarded as finer, lighter, more delicate, and therefore more superior, in the end.”