Vermeer's Hat Author: [Canada] Bo Zhengmin Publisher: Beijing Daily Press

In 1976, archaeologists salvaged the remains of a shipwreck from the waters near St. Helena Island in the Atlantic Ocean and found a batch of Ming Dynasty porcelain in it. The story of these ancient porcelains dates back to four hundred years ago, when the Dutch wore hats made of North American beaver fur and traveled thousands of miles by ship to Asia, using the silver from Potosí to buy a large amount of silk, tea and porcelain from the Chinese and shipped them back to Europe for sale. One of the cargo ships was sunk in a naval battle, allowing the batch of porcelain to cross ancient and modern times and see the light of day again.

Also spanning ancient and modern times and leaving history in them are seven Dutch oil paintings and a porcelain plate. In this book, the famous sinologist Bo Zhengmin cuts into the details of these artworks, using the hats, silver coins, pipes and other items depicted in the works of artists such as Vermeer and their circulation as clues to sort out how the world gradually moved from isolation to contact and then connected into a communication network under the impetus of the trade wave in the 17th century. At this dawn of globalization, unfamiliar cultures began to get to know each other, collide, and merge.

Bo Zhengmin is a great scholar. This book starts with several paintings by the Dutch painter Vermeer, covering Delft and global trade in the Netherlands from the 16th to the 17th century, the transition from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty at the turn of the two centuries, the cold and plague in China, the missionaries coming to East Asia, the Asian operations of the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch arriving in Asia from the ocean, and even "global mobility phenomena redefined their (Dutch) worldview and expanded their world." Vermeer's paintings may be just an introduction or a symbol, but through this small painting, the great world history gradually stands out.

——Ge Zhaoguang

Vermeer's Hat is a clever and eclectic book. Drawing on many details from Vermeer's paintings, Bo Zhengmin guides readers into the vast world of world trade and cultural exchange in the 17th century. With Delft as the center, he takes readers on a historical journey, seeing porcelain, beaver furs and firearms, shipwrecked sailors and their companions, silver mines and Manila galleons. This is a book full of surprises and fun.

Jonathan Spence