From the museum website, 26 November 2013
In the spring of 2014, the Kunsthal presents ‘Of many feathers’, an exhibition that reveals the fascinating world of 17th-century Batavia through the richly colourful drawings and paintings of Dutch artist and traveller Andries Beeckman. Many of the subjects of Beeckman’s drawings – Javanese, Moorish, Chinese, and Japanese people, mestizos, Mardijkers and marketstall-holders – reappear in a monumental painting, and it is these drawings and the painting that form the foundation of the exhibition. Maps, travel-books, drawings, prints, and paintings combine to create an atmospheric impression of Beeckman’s journey from Holland to Batavia and back via Madagascar and Cape of Good Hope between 1655 and 1658. We are able, through Beeckman, to experience the same fascination for the unknown and exotic as people had then. The exhibition has been made possible with the cooperation of the Art History Department of the Radboud University, Nijmegen. Vantilt Publishers and Nijmegen Art-History Studies produced the accompanying publication.
Curated by Menno Jonker (mennojonker.nl)