5 research outputs found
2015-2016 Graduate Catalog
https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/g_cat/1054/thumbnail.jp
Masonic networks, material culture and international trade : the participation of Dutch Freemasons in the commercial and cultural exchange with Southeast Asia (1735-1853)
Freemasonry is an initiation
society, active in the Netherlands since 1735. This dissertation
discusses the history, rituals, material culture and iconography of
freemasonry in the Netherlands and its trade posts in India, Ceylon, the
Dutch East Indies, China and Japan. The membership had particular
advantages for travellers, which explains why ca. 20-30% of the
employees of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were members. They were
involved in the trade in export art for the European and American
markets, and also traded privately in goods for the masonic markets. The
dissertation describes the daily routine in the lodges in the 18th and
19th centuries, the extraordinary ritual architecture and interiors of
lodge buildings on Java, and the production of Chinese export porcelain
and Japanese lacquer with complex symbolic decorations. The
participation of women and (Eur)asians in lodges on Java is also briefly
discussed. As such, the book offers those interested in art history,
colonial history and/or the East India Company an introduction into a
relatively unknown subject. It provides information for the
identification and dating of relevant museum objects, and makes a large
amount of material from lodge archives accessible.Medieval and Early Modern Studie