Publisher's Synopsis
Soon after the Portuguese opened the first direct sea route from Europe to Asia, they established trading centers in India and Sri Lanka. By the early 1500s, the courts and the cities of Europe had become avid consumers of luxury goods imported from South Asia. This book shows how the trade in exotica spurred the development of an extraordinary hybrid art, at once Indian and Portuguese. Many of the featured objects have never before been properly identified or presented to the public.
