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"This book accompanies a major V&A exhibition that explores three hundred years of mutual fascination between East and West, a period of discoveries, encounters and exchanges initiated by the Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama's discovery of a sea route to India in 1498. This established, for the first time, direct relations between Europe and maritime Asia and ushered in a dynamic period of commercial, artistic and technological exchange. This story is presented through wide-ranging essays by leading international scholars, including specialists from the V&A. The text is complemented by a sumptuous range of images, many of these remarkable and luxurious pieces being published for the first time." "In its close examination of the relationships - diplomatic, religious and personal - between East and West, this book provides both an important scholarly record of this vibrant period in world history and a document of the works of art and industry that it produced."--BOOK JACKET.