page_title: Four continents
hierarchical_section_title: Four continents
caption_attribution_description: English: Four figures (a, b, c, d) together form a set. (a): Standing female figure, wearing jeweled mantle and turban with half-moon, holding sceptre and censer. Relief cartouche with camel; (b): Standing female figure, wearing ermine and crown, holding sceptre and orb. Book, globe, cornice fragment, cornucopia and relief cartouche with horse; (c): Standing black female figure, wearing feather skirt, mantle, and elephant-head coif, holding sheaf of wheat. Relief cartouche with lion; (d): Standing female figure, wearing feather skirt, mantle, and headdress. Parrot perched on arm, quiver with arrows and relief cartouche with alligator.
context_page_description: Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Europe in the north, Asia in the east, Africa in the south, and America in the west. This division fit the Renaissance sensibilities of the time, which also divided the world into four seasons, four classical elements, four cardinal directions, four classical virtues, etc.
  The four parts of the world or the four corners of the world refers to the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
  Depictions of personifications of the four continents became popular in several media. Sets of four could be placed around all sorts of four-sided objects, or in pairs along the facade of a building with a central doorway. They were common subjects for prints, and later small porcelain figures. A set of loose conventions quickly arose as to the iconography of the figures. They were normally female, with Europe queenly and grandly dressed, Asia fully dressed but in an exotic style, with Africa and America at most half-dressed, and given exotic props as attributes.
context_section_description: Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia and Europe.  Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Europe in the north, Asia in the east, Africa in the south, and America in the west. This division fit the Renaissance sensibilities of the time, which also divided the world into four seasons, four classical elements, four cardinal directions, four classical virtues, etc.
  The four parts of the world or the four corners of the world refers to the Americas (the "west"), Europe (the "north"), Asia (the "east"), and Africa (the "south").
  Depictions of personifications of the four continents became popular in several media. Sets of four could be placed around all sorts of four-sided objects, or in pairs along the facade of a building with a central doorway.  They were common subjects for prints, and later small porcelain figures.  A set of loose conventions quickly arose as to the iconography of the figures. They were normally female, with Europe queenly and grandly dressed, Asia fully dressed but in an exotic style, with Africa and America at most half-dressed, and given exotic props as attributes.
caption: Set of porcelain figures, German, c. 1775, from left: Asia, Europe, Africa, America.  Formerly James Hazen Hyde collection.
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