If collecting the rare and valuable is an entirely normal trait of human behaviour, amassing objects from far-away places has also long played a role in the history of collecting. East and West, or North and South, for that matter, are of course entirely relative to one's particular geographical position. Therefore, it is interesting that collecting exotic objects is an endeavour that unites humanity over millennia and round the globe. The ancient Assyrians did so as assiduously as eighteenth-century collectors in Paris or London; Chinese emperors collected Western art and artefacts at a time...

In looking at the history of collecting, one may be excused for regarding it as an activity in which, traditionally, women have shown little interest or in which they have not been involved. As the present volume shows, women-particularly aristocratic women-not only resisted this discrimination through the ages, but also built important collections and used them to their own advantage, in order to make statements about their lineage, power, cultural heritage or religious preferences. That is not to say that there was not an increasing number of middle-class women who became draughtswomen,...