Exotic Nature and Imperial Europe: Selling Natural History and Selling the World, c. 1700

Around 1700, Europe's engagement with the exotic world dramatically intensified. The continent became awash with books, maps, engravings, paintings, decorative arts and more, dedicated to the representation and formulation of the non-European world. It was also the period when the word "exotic" and a distinct form of exoticism began to shape debates on global expansion and Europe's imperial prerogatives, and the two phenomena are subtly related. "Exotic" derives from the vocabulary of natural history, and it was the encounter with, and importation of, foreign naturalia that revived its use in early modern Europe. Moreover, the form of exoticism that flourished in this period--the indiscriminate mixing of foreign peoples, places, and products; the almost decorative approach in the visual arts to exotic motifs and iconography; the lavish, coffee-table-book presentation of exotica in printed form--took its cue from exotic natural history, especially from the superbly illustrated books on exotic plants and animals that proliferated. Indeed, the stupendous output of natural history around 1700--especially during the "decennium mirabilis" of natural history, 1695-1705, and from ateliers in Holland, which became the commercial hub of exoticism--marks a critical point in the history of exoticism and, by extension, European globalism. This paper addresses several points in these histories. First, it describes the business of exotic natural history and why it settled in this period in Holland. Second, it considers the commercialization of exotica, which was often sold as living or preserved specimens, but more so in the mimetic form of books and engravings. Above all, illustrated books become the medium of exoticism. Third, it considers the way the selling of plants and animals paved the way for the selling of imperial agenda. The packaging of global nature promoted both colonial ventures and the notion of an imperial Europe.