Francis Davis Millet painted this ambitious work following an extensive trip throughout Asia, during which he amassed a large collection of material culture objects that he frequently illustrated in his paintings. Overflowing with maps, shoes, books, puppets, and textiles, the cluttered space—modeled after the parlor of a sixteenth-century house where Millet lived in England—testifies to the ambition to not only explore the globe but also possess it. In this work, Millet illustrates the attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europeans toward the distant cultures they encountered.