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When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as the first English ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade, culture, and the complexities of Indian society was sketchy at best. To the Mughal court, with its vast wealth and influence, the English were minor players on a very large stage. This talk approaches the accounts of the first English embassy to India by focusing on objects – from the carefully curated gifts carried by Roe, intended to impress the Mughal emperor, to the glimpses into the Mughal world that the art, artifacts, and material culture of that court provide us today. In the process, it draws attention to the significance of object memory in shaping our understanding of global exchange and cross-cultural encounters during the early modern period.
