My name is Stefanie van Gemert. I am a researcher at the UCL Dutch Department, where I also teach Dutch culture and history to students from University College London. Knowing of the hidden treasures at the UCL Art Museum and UCL Special Collections. I thought it would be fun to invite the Treasures from the East participants to UCL. I thought these visits may inspire participants when creating art works for their final exhibition at the Wallace Collection.
On 17 May, Sophie and I welcomed Aaina Women’s Group and some of the Community Ambassadors to the UCL Art Museum for a workshop on the history of the Dutch East India Company and the seventeenth-century Netherlands. We had a close-up look at a range of etchings from the UCL Art Museum – displayed for the day by curator Andrea Fredericksen. These etchings were a starting point for discussion and reflection. Questions that came up were (for example): why would someone sign up to leave on a Dutch East India Company ship? And: who would come along and would return on the ships? Besides that, we got to know some very curious animals!
UCL Special Collections is part of the UCL Library, and deals with rare books and old manuscripts. Tabitha Tuckett and Gill Furlong from Special Collections were at the workshop to help out when the participants were handling the fragile books they had brought along. We saw an official letter from 1674 with old hand writing and the seal of the Dutch Stadholder William III (who later became King of England). There was also a beautiful book in Hebrew: a Humash, the first five books of the Jewish Torah. This book showed the diversity of Amsterdam at the time, which was a real migrants’ town in the seventeenth century. Additionally, we looked at an exciting and beautiful multilingual map depicting Asia, from a rare book by Gotfried Hensel from 1741, showing the diversity of languages across this vast continent.
On 17 May, Sophie and I welcomed Aaina Women’s Group and some of the Community Ambassadors to the UCL Art Museum for a workshop on the history of the Dutch East India Company and the seventeenth-century Netherlands. We had a close-up look at a range of etchings from the UCL Art Museum – displayed for the day by curator Andrea Fredericksen. These etchings were a starting point for discussion and reflection. Questions that came up were (for example): why would someone sign up to leave on a Dutch East India Company ship? And: who would come along and would return on the ships? Besides that, we got to know some very curious animals!
UCL Special Collections is part of the UCL Library, and deals with rare books and old manuscripts. Tabitha Tuckett and Gill Furlong from Special Collections were at the workshop to help out when the participants were handling the fragile books they had brought along. We saw an official letter from 1674 with old hand writing and the seal of the Dutch Stadholder William III (who later became King of England). There was also a beautiful book in Hebrew: a Humash, the first five books of the Jewish Torah. This book showed the diversity of Amsterdam at the time, which was a real migrants’ town in the seventeenth century. Additionally, we looked at an exciting and beautiful multilingual map depicting Asia, from a rare book by Gotfried Hensel from 1741, showing the diversity of languages across this vast continent.
In the afternoon we had lunch at the Wallace Collection and discussed the objects further over tea and sandwiches. The Aaina Women and the Ambassadors then linked the UCL objects from the morning session to the Dutch paintings in the East Galleries. We recognised objects from Rembrandt’s curiosity cabinet and wondered where the pigments in the colourful dresses of Ter Borgh came from.
Thank you for your input and thoughts during this fun workshop!
Thank you for your input and thoughts during this fun workshop!
This piece originally appeared on the Wallace Collection's Treasures from the East blog (minor edits). I have written several blog entries for the project participants: here you can read another one.
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