October 9, 2016 The Other Silk Route
Tornaviaje, or Return Voyage, a Mexico City exhibit, spotlights China’s artistic influence on the New World through trade.
The Manila Galleon, better known in Spanish as the Nao de China, regularly plied the Pacific, bringing Chinese silks, spices and lots of other goodies from the Orient to Mexico’s Pacific coast port of Acapulco. Some of it would then be shipped overland to Veracruz, on the Gulf Coast, and loaded onto ships bound for Europe.
The artistic fusion between the Far East and the New World is clear in many of the pieces on show, which were mainly made by Chinese artisans to suit European tastes, including elaborately decorated leather and wooden chests, embroidered silk shawls, carved ivory statues and ceramics.
Argh! Apparently the eyepatch wasn’t the only accessory in the pirate’s wardrobe. The scary metal mask below was reportedly worn by the infamous Dutch pirate Lorencillo, who had a long and lucrative career sacking Acapulco, Veracruz, Campeche and other Mexican ports.
Tornaviaje: The Nao de China and the Baroque in Mexico
Franz Mayer Museum
Through Oct. 30
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