Object Histories. Early Modern Flotsam

Objects and artifacts without written contexts, whose preceding or immediate history and cultural traditions have been lost in transition or translation between cultural spheres pose a particular series of challenges. These objects can be the sole remains of fragmented cultural context and histories of making, circulation and reception, yet is often difficult to determine whether they were exceptional at the time of their making or part of a larger series, a problem amplified when more than one cultural context is involved.

How do we deal with these testimonies of a scattered past? The absence of written sources related to a specific object forces us to attempt to compensate for lacunae with other lines of historical evidence. But how do we choose which lines to trace and which to ignore or neglect? These sorts of decisions are central to the working practice of art historians (or historians of material culture more broadly), but rarely addressed explicitly. They are often commented upon in footnotes or side remarks, although many of the decisions that scholars make while writing about these kind of works hold significance beyond the specificity of the argument at hand.