Anna Grasskamp investigates display practices of the sixteenth and
seventeenth century in China and Europe providing an in-depth analysis
of the processes through which foreign artifacts and natural objects
were framed in early modern collections. While the first two chapters
focus on the appropriation of artifacts through the examples of
porcelain vessels and scientific instruments in metal mounts, the book's
later chapters analyze the staging of foreign nature in Renaissance and
Ming collecting through the case of coral.