Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World.  Profile Books Ltd, London, 2009.  ISBN 9781846681202 (pbk)

The famous Canadian  historian Timothy Brook has written an enjoyable account of the beginnings of globalisationin the seventeenth Century.  Brook has authored many books about China and Japan especially of the Ming period.  In his 2008 book “Vermeer’s Hat” he sets out to show the development of trade routes and explores the often fraught relationships in which Europeans found themselves struggling to gain and maintain spheres of influence and trading posts in Asia and the Americas.

Charmingly, Brook evokes the concept of “Indra’s Web” which affirms that everything is connected. He examines five paintings by the seventeenth century artist, Johannes Vermeer and one each by two of his contempories Hendrik Van Der Burch and Leonaert Bramer.

He draws attention to goods which appear in the paintings and discusses how each artefact might have come to Vermeer’s home in Delft and shows how these actually opened doors into the rapidly expanding world and traces the growth of trading companies  like the VOC and East India Company which gave rise to wide spread colonisation by the Europeans.

The painting “The Beaver Hat” which lends its name to the book, explores the history of the soldier’s hat fashioned from beaver pelts bought from North Americans. Money raised from this trade financed voyages in search of new trade routes to China, Japan and the Indies.

The book has informative maps and the paintings are exquisitely reproduced The paintings portray such goods as Murano glass, Turkish carpets and  blue and white china from the kiln town of Jinderzhen in China all of which are traced back to their origins and paid for by silver from Peru.

The book is divided into sections one of the most interesting being the history of how tobacco smoking spread from South America to Europe and thence to the Far East preparing the way there for wide spread opium smoking in China.

Vermeer’s Hat published by Profile Books of London is a rivetting and informative read.  It has an extensive reference section a very informative bibliography and is well referenced.

Tags: Art, Books