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The Manila Galleon Trade (1565–1815)
Double Gourd-Shaped Bottle (Botellon) [Puebla] Jar with Iron Collar (Chocolatero) [Puebla] Virgin of the Immaculate Conception [Hispano-Philippine] Nativity Scene [Ecuadoran, with Hispano-Philippine ivory inserts] Mater Dolorosa (Mourning Virgin) [Sino-Spanish] Jar (Tibor) [Puebla] Tureen with Cover [Chinese]


The so-called Manila Galleon ("Nao de China" or "Nao de Acapulco") brought porcelain, silk, ivory, spices, and myriad other exotic goods from China to Mexico in exchange for New World silver. (It is estimated that as much as one-third of the silver mined in New Spain and Peru went to the Far East.) On the return leg, the precious Asian wares traveled across the Pacific, via the Philippines (colonized by Spain in the late sixteenth century), to Acapulco on Mexico's west coast. They then crossed Mexico overland for shipment to Spain. However, much of the porcelain and carved ivory remained in the Americas and, in many cases, influenced artists working there: Mexican ceramics display the impact of the Galleon trade most vividly. But Chinese silk designs may have inspired some of the patterned garments of Guatemalan sculptures, whose faces also betray the subtle influence of Asian ivory carvings.


Trade and Travel (1600-1800 A.D.), Porcelain, Textile, Silk, Ivory, Asia, China, Americas, Mexico, Metalwork, Silver, Metalwork, Silver, Mesoamerica and Central America, Oceania, Melanesia, Porcelain, Asia, Americas, Central America, Americas, Central and Southern Andes, Asia, Southeast Asia

Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Andean Textiles, Arts of the Mission Schools in Mexico, Arts of the Spanish Americas, 1550-1850, Colonial Kero Cups, Europe and the Age of Exploration, European Exploration of the Pacific, 1600-1800 A.D., Polychrome Sculpture in Spanish America, Talavera de Puebla, French Porcelain in the Eighteenth Century, German and Austrian Porcelain in the Eighteenth Century, East and West: Chinese Export Porcelain, Exoticism in the Decorative Arts, Abridged List of Rulers: Europe,

China, 1600-1800 A.D., Iberian Peninsula, 1600-1800 A.D., Mexico and Central America, 1600-1800 A.D., South America, 1600-1800 A.D., Southeast Asia, 1600-1800 A.D., Central America and the Caribbean: Native Peoples, 1400-1600 A.D., Maya Area: Native Peoples, 1400-1600 A.D., Mexico: Native Peoples, 1400-1600 A.D., Central America and the Caribbean: Native Peoples, 1400-1600 A.D.,

Mexico and Central America, 1600-1800 A.D., Mexico and Central America, 1800-1900 A.D.