The social life of ‘Colchas’ and other Indo-Portuguese assets: Uses and value beyond trade (XVI-XVIII centuries)

ABSTRACT The aesthetic value of textiles, ceramics and furniture from Asia became a popular study subject in specific historiographical circles, especially in essays and monographic studies developed by art history specialists, often included in exhibition catalogues and other journals related to museum collections, artistic heritage, or restoration and conservation of private collections. However, despite the growing interest they arouse in certain historiographical circles, Asian objects are still seldom analyzed in their exact historical and social framework, i.e., as pieces with a functional use and a patrimonial value, as well as social and economic assets to display and preserve the individual memory and the memory of old and current Portuguese households. The prospect that will be highlighted in this article is the idea of an “India through the gates”, which includes the material infrastructures of both the daily life and the accumulation of assets inside 17th and 18th century households, particularly considering the Indian Colchas. Given the chronic shortage of textiles in the country, this prospect may represent the most intensive and wide ranged trading activity with the main textile export centers from central Europe to Portugal, in the 15th century, as a natural step in the pursue of Asian textiles. From a formal and plastic point of view, these textiles provided more sophisticated aesthetic solutions, especially after the arrival of the Portuguese in India and the strengthening of a transcultural and transcontinental network with multiple economic and cultural connections, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.