Crossroads

Featured in this section are artworks visibly marked by encounters between Asian, European, and American cultures during the early modern period. Created and circulated in diverse geographic spaces and social contexts, they offer glimpses of a world connected by trade networks as well as histories of religious and imperial expansion. These circumstances yielded singular works of art, sometimes of indiscernible origin, seemingly created in places where cultures meet or collide. The examples on view include commodities destined for export, composite works created in more than one place, and art repurposed or remade by consumers on another side of the world. The commingling of European and Asian subjects, styles, materials, and techniques signals appreciation, if not always understanding, and provides material witness to a growing global consciousness.

In 1564 a Spanish fleet sailed from the west coast of present-day Mexico and reached the Philippine islands. The discovery of a transpacific return route a year later paved the way for the establishment of direct, continuous trade between Asia and Spanish America.

For nearly 250 years, the so-called Manila Galleon annually departed Acapulco loaded with tons of American silver and returned with cargoes of silk, porcelain, lacquer, and other luxury goods from Asia. Some of it was reexported to Spain via the Atlantic port of Veracruz, but much of it remained in New Spain, where it had a profound cultural impact. People wore clothing made of Chinese silk and Indian cotton, drank chocolate from porcelain cups, and worshipped at altars adorned with ivories from the Philippines.

The use and display of imported possessions from Asia signaled elevated social status. For Creole elites—Spaniards born in America—it also informed an ongoing discourse of self-identification that distinguished them from their Iberian counterparts. The abundance of goods from Asia was a visible manifestation of difference from Spain, and the thriving metropolis of Mexico City was celebrated as a prosperous emporium where global trade routes converged.