The Persian Mirror

This exploration of France's preoccupation with Persia in the seventeenth century uses diplomatic sources, fiction and images to describe how the French came to see themselves in Safavid Persia. It revises our notions of orientalism and suggests that early modern Europeans had more nuanced responses to Asia than previously imagined.

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The Persian Mirror explores France's preoccupation with Persia in the seventeenth century. Long before Montesquieu's Persian Letters, French intellectuals, diplomats and even ordinary Parisians were fascinated by Persia and eagerly consumed travel accounts, fairy tales, and the spectacle of the Persian ambassador's visit to Paris and Versailles in 1715. Using diplomatic sources, fiction and printed and painted images, The Persian Mirror describes how the French came to see themselves in Safavid Persia. In doing so, it revises our notions of orientalism and the exotic and suggests that early modern Europeans had more nuanced responses to Asia than previously imagined.