Portugal, Jesuits and Japan : Spiritual Beliefs and Earthly Goods
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EORTUGAI,, E5UITS, AND lAPAN SPIRITUAL BEL EES AND EARTHLY GOODS Edited by Victoria Weston MCMULIEN MUSEUM OF ARl', BOSl’ON COUEGE [This blank page deliberately inserted by Boston College Digital Libraries staff to preserve the openings of the analog book.] FOR JACQUEFINE MCMUEEEN ORTUGAL, lESUITS, AND lAPAN SPIRITUAL BELIEFS AND EARTHLY GOODS Edited by Victoria Weston MCMULLEN MUSEUM OE ART, BOSTON COLLEGE distributed by the university OE CHICAGO PRESS This publication is issued in conjunction with the exhibition Portugal, Jesuits, and Japan: Spiritual Beliefs and Earthly Goods at the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, February ib-june 2, 2013. Organized by the McMullen Museum, Portugal, Jesuits, and Japan has been curated by Victoria Weston and Alexandra Curvelo in consultation with Pedro Moura Car- valho. The exhibition has been underwritten by Boston College, the Patrons of the McMullen Museum, Leslie and Peter Ciampi, the Camoes Institute of Cooperation and Language/ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, the Consulate General of Portugal in Boston, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. CftMOES INSTITUTO CALOUSTE DACOOPERAgAO E DA Lingua GULBENKIAN PORTUCPL FOUNDATION MINISTERIOI ; NEGOCIOS ESTRANGEIROS BOSTON Additional support for this publication provided by the Luso-American Development Foundation and the japan Foundation, NY. fundacAo JAPANFOUNDATIONc^ LUSO-AMERICANA NEW YORK (N^ Library of Congress Control Number: 2012953815 ISBN: 978-1-892850-20-1 Distributed by the University of Chicago Press Printed in the United States of America © 2013 by the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Book designer: john McCoy Copyeditor: Kate Shugert Front and back covers: detail of nanban trade screen, japan, plate ib, private collection. Photo: Kerry Burke (Boston College). Endpapers: detail of portable oratory, japan, plate 31, Santa Casa da Misericordia, Sardoal, Portugal. Photo © Paulo Sousa/CMS. Photo credits: © Asian Art Museum, San Francisco: plates 8, 25a-b; © Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal: plates 27, 35; Kerry Burke (Boston College): plates la-b, 51-53, 60-63; Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley/ David Rumsey: plates i5a-b, 16; © Cintra & Castro Caldas: plate 46; © jose Manuel Costa Alves: plates 12-13; © Lisbon: plates 59a-b; © Pedro Lobo: plates 14, 28, 41, 43; © jose Meneses: plate 49; © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY: plates 3, 37; © 2013 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: plates 64-69; © jose Luis Samagaio: plate 10; © Graga Sarsfield, Museu Quinta das Cruzes: plate 50; © Arnaldo Soares/Diregao-Geral do Patrimonio Cultural/ Divisao de Documentagao, Comunicagao e Informatica: plate 26; © Paulo Sousa/CMS: plate 31; © jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art, Lisbon/London: plates 5-7, 9, ii, 23, 32-33, 39, 42, 44-45, 47. CONTENTS DIRECTOR'S PREFACE 7 Nancy Netzer INTRODUCTION 11 Victoria Weston THE INVENTION OF AN ICON: FROM FRANCISCO XAVIER OF NAVARRE TO SAN FRANCISCO, PATRON OF MISSIONS AND apostle TO THE INDIES 17 Rene B. Javellana, SJ THE MUTUAL EMPLACEMENT OF JAPAN AND EUROPE DURING THE NANBAN CENTURY 27 Angelo Cattaneo THE CIRCULATION OF EUROPEAN AND ASIAN WORKS OF ART IN JAPAN, CIRCA 1600 57 Pedro Moura Carvalho REFLECTIONS ON CULTURAL EXCHANGE AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ASIA: A PORTUGUESE NOBLEMAN'S LACQUERED MUGHAL SHIELD 43 Ulrike Korber THE PORTUGUESE TEXTILE TRADE IN ASIA 37 Prasannan Parthasarathi PRIESTS, PACHYDERMS, AND PORTUGUESE: ANIMAL EXCHANGE IN THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 61 Rory Browne NANBAN ART: WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE 71 Alexandra Curvelo UNFOLDING THE SCREEN: DEPICTING THE EOREIGN IN JAPANESE NANBAN BYOBU 79 Victoria Weston PLATES 91 INDEX 145 CONTRIBUTORS 147 DIRECTOR'S PREFACE or the most part, Portugal, Jesuits, and Japan each are studied by setts Boston, who would also edit the catalogue. Also F distinct groups of scholars with different cultural backgrounds, historical training, and on the initial organizing team was a jesuit historian. linguistic skills. Yet, in order to examine a briefperiod in Japanese history, that ofthe arrival Professor Rene B. javellana from Ateneo de Manila University, who held the Thomas Gasson Professo- of the Portuguese in Japan in 1543 and the introduction of Christianity there by the Jesuit rial Chair at Boston College in 2007-08. The group St. Francis Xavier in 1549, until the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1639, one needs to rely began working on a wish list of objects. Generously on discourse among scholars from the traditionally distinct compartments of historical supported by a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian inquiry. This book and the exhibition it accompanies present the results of one of the first Foundation, Moura Carvalho identified many works attempts at such a fruitful discussion. in the Peabody Essex Museum and in Portuguese collections that he arranged for me to see with him The origins of this project date to 2007 when introduced us to Portuguese art historian Pedro in the summer of 2009. We were able to secure one of the McMullen’s Patrons, Gerald Buckley, Moura Carvalho, who at that time was a postdoc- several tentative agreements for loans, thereby suggested 1 meet the Consul General of Portu- toral fellow in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic establishing a core group of objects for the exhibi- gal in Boston, Manuela Bairos. Given the large Architecture at Harvard University. Moura Carvalho tion. In 2011, Moura Carvalho became chief curator Portuguese-American population in New England, suggested that the exhibition examine an under- of the Asian Civilisations Museum and Peranakan Bairos wished to inspire a local museum to organize studied group of lapanese nanban screens for the Museum, Singapore, a post that unfortunately would an exhibition exploring an aspect of her country’s information they impart about the arrival of Portu- not allow him the time required to continue work- culture. Finding common interest in connections guese traders and jesuit missionaries in japan from ing on the exhibition. He and Paulo Cunha Alves, between Portugal and the jesuits in the early mod- the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries. who succeeded Bairos as Consul General of Portugal ern period, the McMullen agreed to seek a subject Moura Carvalho agreed to serve as co-curator of in Boston shortly after the project began, suggested for an exhibition that would involve new research such an exhibition with Victoria Weston, associate another Portuguese scholar, Alexandra Curvelo, on an aspect of that relationship. The Consul then professor of art history at University of Massachu- curator at the Museu Nacional do Azulejo in Lisbon, 7 — to take his place. Curvelo and Weston worked to final- interplay of the Age of Exploration. Kate Shugert Calvao (Funda^ao Oriente); joseph Garver (Harvard ize a list of loans and create a narrative and themes organized loans and photography, copyedited with Map Collection, Harvard University); William Stone- to be developed in the exhibition. They were aided extraordinary care the essays in this publication, and, man, Mary Haegert, Hope Mayo, and Carie McGin- in this process by Angelo Cattaneo, a professor of with John McCoy and Victoria Weston, compiled the nis (Houghton Library, Harvard University); jorge the history of cartography at the Center for Overseas index. Kerry Burke provided numerous photographs Welsh, Luisa Vinhais, and Margarida Lamas (jorge 8 History of the New University of Lisbon, who devel- for the catalogue and exhibition. Linda Webb assisted Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art, Lisbon/ oped a section for the exhibition on the “mapping” with proofreading and interns Francesca Falzone, London); Rui Machete, Mario Mesquita, and Miguel DIRECTOR'S of lapan during the period in question. Historians Node lllien, Gabriela Lorido, Lauren Passaro, and Vaz (Luso-American Development Foundation); PREFACE Rory Browne and Prasannan Parthasarathi of Boston Emilie Sintobin helped with proofreading and loan the late Mary Griggs Burke, Stephanie Wada, and College and conservator Ulrike Korber of the lose de processing. Filomena Cunha Alves; jeremy Clarke, Sj; Gratia Williams (Mary and jackson Burke Founda- Figueiredo Laboratory in Lisbon joined the team as Kenji Hayao; T. Frank Kennedy, Sj; T. K. McClintock; tion); Thomas P. Campbell, John Carpenter, Emily contributors of essays to the catalogue. Michael Noone; Elizabeth Swinton; and james Weiss Foss, and Denise Leidy (The Metropolitan Museum Our principal debt of gratitude is to Victoria Weston provided valuable advice in the planning process. of Art); Virginia Gomes (Museu Nacional Machado and Alexandra Curvelo. Weston has guided the curato- Anastos Chiavaras and Rose Breen from Boston Col- de Gastro, Coimbra); Maria Antonia Pinto de Matos rial initiative from beginning to end and has edited lege’s Office of Risk Management provided essential (Museu Nacional do Azulejo); Malcolm Rogers, Marta this volume of essays by authors of various native guidance regarding insurance. We are grateful to the Fodor, Anne Nishimura Morse, Pamela Parmal, Kim tongues with exceptional discernment, applying her University’s Advancement Office—especially james Pashko, Jane Portal, and Angie Simonds (Museum vast knowledge of japanese art and history. Curvelo Husson, Thomas Lockerby, Catherine Concannon, of Fine Arts, Boston); James Russell, Melanie Cor- has brought to the project unparalleled knowledge Mary Lou Crane, Kathy Kuy, and Ginger Saariaho reia, Stuart Frank, and Doug Kendall