Maps & Marvels brings together maps by Amsterdam-based cartographers from Het Scheepvaartmuseum's wonderful collection of cartography works.
maps & marvels
Maps & Marvels shows how Dutch seafarers in the 'Dutch golden age' found their way at sea, and how these voyages defined the way Europeans saw the world. Using the centuries-old maps, visitors travel to the locations that shaped Dutch history: South Africa, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, and Brazil. The spectacular wall map of Amsterdam by Pieter Bast dating from 1597 forms the starting point.
Maps & Marvels shows how Dutch seafarers in the 'Dutch golden age' found their way at sea, and how these voyages defined the way Europeans saw the world.
view of the island of Deshima
view of the island of Deshima in the bay of Nagasaki, Kawahara Keiga, 1800 - 1850, ink on silk and paper, 58.5 x 80.5 cm.
an unknown world
The second part of this presentation is entitled 'curiosities': a cabinet of curiosities full of beautiful and objects through which the ‘unknown world’ was brought into wealthy Dutch homes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Here, visitors will find wall maps, globes, atlases, and travel reports as well as souvenirs, trinkets, and works of art, all of which symbolize the journeys that make up the first part of the exhibition. In the seventeenth century, the Netherlands was also the European centre of publishers of geographical information in the form of atlases, maps, and globes. The presentation therefore also devotes attention to legendary names such as Blaeu, Janssonius, Claesz, Colijn, and Van Meurs.
