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By chance I was alerted to a conference held in Shanghai Fudan University
and one of the speakers had the following summery<br><br>
<br>
A Chinese Visitor to the Netherlands in 1601: The Hakka Merchant Wu Pu
and his Portrait by Peter Paul Rubens <br>
Thijs Weststeijn, Utrecht University/University of Amsterdam<br>
m.a.weststeijn@uu.nl<br>
Among the onlookers Rubens depicted in The miracles of Saint Francis
Xavier, one figure has drawn the particular attention of art historians.
On the basis of his dress, 14 facial features, and curious hat, he has
been connected to a drawing in the Getty <br>
Museum known as the ‘Korean man’. In this talk I will defend my thesis
that the drawing was, in turn, based on a work by another artist. This
was a portrait of an individual: a Chinese merchant who travelled on a
VOC ship --in fact the first East Asian <br>
to visit Europe whose identity is documented in such detail. The new
conclusion is based on an album amicorum of the Middelburg lawyer
Nicolaas de Vrise (1595-1609). <br>
An inscription in Chinese and an additional explanation in Latin identify
the sitter as the Chinese merchant Wu Pu, who arrived in Middelburg on 31
May 1600. Additional Dutch and Chinese sources document Wu Pu’s career
after his return to Southeast Asia, <br>
as a middleman for the VOC. These findings inspire the observation that
the common tendency to study images in relation to other images rather
than to historical reality may be counterproductive. Too much fear of a
positivist ‘fallacy’ may confirm the <br>
dynamic of Orientalist or ‘exotic’ projections, whereas an encounter
between individuals actually took place.<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
_ _<br>
(o) (o)<br>
oOOO----(_)----OOOo---<br>
Henny (Lee Hae Kang)<br>
-----------------------------<br>
<a href="http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a> Portal to all my sites<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a> </u></font>(in
English) Feel free to discover Korea with Hendrick Hamel (1653-1666)<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/indexk2.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/indexk2.htm</a>
</u></font>In Korean <br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch" eudora="autourl">
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch</a> </u></font>In
Dutch<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.vos.henny-savenije.pe.kr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.vos.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a> </u></font>Frits Vos Article
about Witsen and Eibokken and his first Korean-Dutch dictionary<br>
<a href="http://www.cartography.henny-savenije.pe.kr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.cartography.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a> (in English) Korea
through Western Cartographic eyes<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.hwasong.henny-savenije.pe.kr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.hwasong.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a> </u></font>Hwasong the
fortress in Suwon<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.oldkorea.henny-savenije.pe.kr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.oldKorea.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a> </u></font>Old Korea in
pictures<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.british.henny-savenije.pe.kr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.british.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a> </u></font>A British
encounter in Pusan (1797)<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.genealogy.henny-savenije.pe.kr/tng" eudora="autourl">
http://www.genealogy.henny-savenije.pe.kr/tng</a>
</u></font>Genealogy<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr/phorum" eudora="autourl">
http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr/phorum</a> </u></font>Bulletin board for
Korean studies<br><br>
<br>
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