Asia in Amsterdam Exhibition Planning Grant

FAIN: GE-50721-13

Peabody Essex Museum, Inc. (Salem, MA 01970-3726)
Lynda Roscoe Hartigan (Project Director: August 2012 to April 2015)

Planning of a traveling exhibition, a catalog, an online publication, and programs exploring the global reach of the Dutch Republic in the 17th and 18th centuries and the role that Asian art and culture played in Dutch life.

"Asia in Amsterdam" (working title), an exhibition co-organized by the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, will explore the global reach of the Dutch Republic in the 17th and 18th centuries and the role that Asian art and culture played in Dutch life. The planning grant would support consultation with humanities scholars to refine the key themes of the exhibition, research individual objects, and finalize a checklist of PEM and Rijksmuseum objects and other key loans. Planning work will include three roundtable meetings of scholars and curators held in Salem, Amsterdam, and Singapore to shape the interpretation of the exhibition and outline the content of the publication, secure authors, and collaboratively examine objects and discuss which would best communicate the interpretive themes. It is critically important that the scholars and curators meet in person in these sites in order to be able to view and evaluate many of the proposed works first hand.