Dutch New York, Between East and West

"I guess I’m stretching the traditional boundaries of the Renaissance here, because this is a book focused on the late 17th century. But it’s about a woman whose life spanned the globe, and whose possessions – which were recorded at the time of her death in a very extensive inventory – testify to the global connections of her own life. And I feel that these global connections, as we’ve already seen, were being forged in the Renaissance era. So it seemed like a good book to end up with, because this is almost like the fulfilment of Renaissance worlds, seen through the microcosm of one woman and her inventory. Yes. There are two main areas, actually, and they chime with what we’ve already discussed. Firstly, it’s women and children again. We have women’s caps and hairpins, a spinning wheel – so you’re given a real entrée into the female world. But also, at the time that she dies, Margrieta van Varick has four children, and she’s very concerned to share out her goods among them – to make provision for them in very specific, caring sorts of ways. And so she distributes among them her collection of baby clothes, or – I think this is amazing – 31 silver playthings, little silver toys that she owned. Her petticoats, her household linen – I think it really gives you a chance to think about the woman, the mother, the children. So that’s one area that I think is really interesting. The other area is the global aspect, because among her possessions, van Varick has got Turkish carpets, Japanese lacquer work, palampores [Indian bedcovers], lots and lots of Indian floral chintzes – including baby clothes – and, of course, porcelain. This is a woman who was born in the Netherlands in 1649. She was herself orphaned, and at the age of 17 she was taken by an uncle to go and live in Malacca in the Dutch East Indies, where she married and then was widowed. She came back to the Dutch republic, and finally emigrated to America, where she lived in Flatbush in Brooklyn with her second husband. So her life completely crosses all the global boundaries, and this is reflected in the possessions which she leaves at her death – over 2,000 objects are recorded in her inventory. Well, early modern people were obsessed with inventories – they loved lists. One tends to think that the further back in time you get, the less good records are going to be – and yet, if you or I die, it’s highly unlikely that there’s going to be an inventory listing every pair of knickers, every shirt, every napkin we ever owned. So at that level, this inventory is not atypical. People in the 16th and 17th centuries were accustomed to having very detailed inventories of their goods. And that again indicates the different value that things have over time. On the other hand, for a woman to have left an inventory with over 2,000 objects in it – that is an exceptionally good source. Although, interestingly, the curators – this book also emerged out of an exhibition; this one was held at the Bard Graduate Center in New York – do repeatedly say that there’s something frustratingly sparse about the list. Although there are many, many objects that are itemised, they don’t necessarily give you the kind of details, or the personal details, that you really crave. Historians of this period have to put an awful lot of effort into reconstructing the life around these objects. But it’s definitely there to be reconstructed. Sure, Margrieta was unusual. Undoubtedly, she was unusual. And yet I think what this case study, this sort of micro-history, draws attention to is that this kind of global connection was certainly anything but unique in this period. And in fact, when the curators were planning the exhibition, their strategy was clear. They had the list, but they didn’t have the possessions, so what they did was to get hold of equivalent examples to illustrate the items on Margrieta’s inventory. That they were able to bring together so many of the objects named on the list demonstrates that there were many people in 17th century New York who owned Indian or Japanese artefacts. Even if people themselves hadn’t travelled to any great extent, the goods were in constant circulation right across the globe during this period. I suppose where I’d like to see it go is beyond the elites. And that’s where, actually, the example of Margrieta van Varick is a good one – because although, as we’ve said, she’s an exceptional person, who had ever heard of Margrieta van Varick before this catalogue and this exhibition happened? So I think this is one area where the history of global encounters in the early modern period definitely has to go – we have to find out more about the anonymous people who engaged in these exchanges. Material culture can really help here. You asked me earlier how common it was in the early modern period to write an inventory. One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that it was a darn sight more common to write an inventory than it was to write an autobiography. So I think this is exactly where material culture can help us gain access – in the cases of lesser-known people. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Another area that we’re really beginning to get to grips with is the relationship between Europe and the Near East. Traditionally we’ve been interested in the great voyages of discovery – but Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton are pioneers in bringing to the forefront these relationships between Europe and the very proximate Muslim world. There’s a lot of interesting research being done about that. The other point you raised was an interest in material texts. I don’t think we can any longer think in terms of this total disjunction between written sources and visual sources. We’re far more attuned to the fact that visual sources often have verbal elements within them, and that written sources, in fact, are also objects. We have to contextualise these in their concrete world – not just think of them as abstracted texts."