Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Laura Oliván
(Universität Wien)
Mercedes Llorente (CHAM)
Send message to Convenors
- Location:
- Sala 1.05, Edifício I&D, Piso 1
- Start time:
- 15 July, 2015 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
We will explore the circulation of portraits, objects and knowledge between European courts. Agents like queens, ambassadresses and spies created powerful networks of cultural interchange and contributed to transform the way of looking, experiencing and feeling court culture in the Baroque.
Long Abstract:
European courts became important focus of cultural exchange in the second half of the Seventeenth Century. The courtly culture underwent a boom at that time, which underscores the exchange of knowledge, materials and visual culture multiplied and this exchange was promoted mainly by people who traveled.
In the Baroque era, women obtained socio-political recognition at European courts. Consequently, queens, ambassadresses and spies became important cultural agents. However, they not only exchanged and disseminated culture, they also transformed it: These women and their networks favoured the emergance of new cultural forms such as intimity, sociability and domesticity.
In our panel, Mercedes Llorente will analyze the exchange of gifts between Queen Mariana of Austria and the courts of Paris and Vienna. Leticia Frutos will examine the figure of Maria Mancini at the Madrid court and her efforts to influence courtisans through objects, perfumes and gloves that she ordered from Rome; also, Mancini will present cultural life in Madrid from the viewpoint of the guardainfante. Laura Oliván will discuss the role of Imperial ambassadresses (ambassador's wives) in Madrid as important disseminators of Spanish culture at the court of Vienna.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Laura Oliván (Universität Wien)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I will explain how the Imperial ambassadresses learnt, experienced and interpreted the Spanish culture in Madrid. A culture and sociability that they exported it to Vienna between 1650 and 1700.
Paper long abstract:
This paper deals with the role of the Imperial Ambassadresses in Madrid as agents and difusers of the Spanish culture in the court of Vienna (1650-1700). During their stays in Spain, these ambassadresses showed a great capacity of adaptation, assimilation and reinterpretation of the Spanish culture: they dressed guardainfantes, felt a strong devotion to the Virgins of Madrid, consumed chocolate, collected búcaros, used perfumes, read comedies and Spanish novels, bought indian furniture and adopted the Spanish sociability, receiving visits at the estrado. This Spanish culture was exported to Vienna.
Mercedes Llorente (CHAM)
Paper short abstract:
One way of promoting interest in the court was by sending gifts to other courts, thereby creating more intimate contact with distant relatives. Some of these gifts were portraits, the exchange of royal portraits served to disseminate images of the monarchs more widely
Paper long abstract:
Women were primarily defined by their family ties. They were given political assignments and court roles that promoted the interests of their families and children; they acted as "ambassadors" for their families. Mariana sent many gifts to French and Austrian courts because they were close family, also because in times of conflict and weakness, it was crucially important to be able to count on family support.
Affections and politics went hand in hand and gift-giving was a way to court favour, and develop closer links with the recipient. Rare and expensive gifts were given to mark the importance of the occasion. The Court gift played a fundamental role in personal relationships; it announced one's social status and was proof of the generosity of the giver
These gifts may have reduced distances between family members, but they also reinforced hierarchies.
Rocío Martínez López (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED))
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at how the culture of the gift exchange works through the figure of the queen Mariana of Neuburg, second wife of Charles II of Spain (1661-1700) and how it began an interesting exchange between the Spanish Monarchy and the Empire that had an important cultural and also political impact in the Spanish court in the latest years of Charles II’s reign.
Paper long abstract:
Queen Mariana of Neuburg was the second wife of Charles II of Spain and one of the most important political figures in the Spanish court during the latest years of the XVIIth century. In her correspondence with her brother, the elector of Palatinate Johann Wilhelm of Neuburg, the political matters had an enormous importance, but it also reflect a constant exchange of products between Madrid and the Elector court in Düsseldorf. The queen asked her brother for all kind of products she missed from her homeland, from beer to food, and she even asked her to send her a baker from Germany because she missed the bread from Germany. At the same time, her brother asked her for luxury gift from the Spanish court, like product from America or even important paintings that were hangings in the walls of different Spanish palaces to decorate his own, a petition that his sister usually granted (with or without Charles II’s license, by the way). Also, Johann Wilhelm, who needed to keep her powerful sister happy, also sent her everything he could think of to woo her and her husband, from musicians to coaches and fashionable trinkets of all kinds. But there were other people who tried to get and maintain themselves into the queen’s good graces this way, like the elector of Bavaria, Maximilian Emmanuel, or the king of France himself, Louis XIV. Thus, this cultural, political and familiar exchange will be the central topic of this paper, in which we will examine the meaning and importance of these gifts and the trip they made from Germany to Madrid and vice versa.