Vol. 27, No. 3 “De Nieu Nederlanse Marcurius” Sept. 2011

Events of interest clarify how exceptional his animated this description, all painted by poses and virtuoso brushwork were at Rembrandt and his pupils between Until October 10, 2011. “Frans the time. For more information go to: 1643 and 1655. Bust-length Hals in the Metropolitan Mus- www.metmuseum.org. portraits, they show the same young eum.” The Metropolitan Museum *** man familiar from traditional of Art holds the most important artistic conceptions of Christ, yet collection of paintings in America October 24-25, 2011. An Interna- each figure also bears a slightly by the celebrated Dutch artist tional Bilateral Conference “Albertus different expression. In posing an Frans Hals (1582/83-1666). His C. Van Raalte, Leader and Liaison” ethnographically correct model and portraits and genre scenes were Celebrating the Bicentennial of the using a human face to depict Jesus, famous in his lifetime for their Birth of the Reverend Albertus C. Rembrandt overturned the entire immediacy and dazzling brush- Van Raalte DD (b. 17 October 1811). history of Christian art, which had work. This exhibition presents To be held October 24-25, 2011 at previously relied on rigidly copied thirteen paintings by Hals, Hope College in Michigan. Program: prototypes for Christ. including two lent from private http://bit.ly/onF0MD *** collections, and several works by *** other Netherlandish masters. November 17-18, 2011. “Upheaval Until October 30, 2011. Several of the Museum’s “Rembrandt & Disaster, Triumph & Tragedy: paintings by Hals are famous and the Face of Jesus” at the Philadel- AFTERMATH.” The annual especially the early “Merrymakers phia Museum of Art. Rembrandt van Researching New York conference at Shrovetide” (ca. 1616) and the Rijn (1606–1669) is universally at the University at Albany. The so-called “Yonker Ramp and His acclaimed as the greatest master Research Center Sweetheart” (1623), both painter of the Dutch Golden Age, the will chair an off-campus session on bequeathed to the Museum by 17th-century efflorescence of art in Thursday at the NYS Library Benjamin Altman in 1913. Also the Netherlands. Thanks to an concerning the aftermath of the included in the exhibition are two inventory of his home and studio English takeover of New Nether- loans from private collections in conducted in July 1656, we know that land in 1664. For more information New York—the small, exquisite Rembrandt kept in his bedroom two go to: http://bit.ly/a2YHCM Portrait of Samuel Ampzing of his own paintings called Head of Christ *** (1630), on copper, and the . A third painting—identified “Head of Christ, from life” November 18, 2011. well-known Fisher Girl (1630– as a The 30th Peter 32). A selection of other Dutch —was found in a bin in Rembrandt’s Stuyvesant Ball will be held at Pier paintings from the Museum’s studio, awaiting use as a model for a Sixty on the Hudson. For more Ball collection and a few engravings New Testament composition. Today, information go to: www.thenaf.org. set Hals’s work in the context of seven paintings survive (from what *** his native Haarlem and help was likely eight originally) that fit

New Netherland Institute, Box 2536, Empire State Plaza Station, Albany, NY 12220 Voice: 518–486–4815 | Fax: 518–473–0472 [email protected] | www.newnetherlandinstitute.org De Nieu Nederlanse Marcurius 2

Until June 2, 2012. A new frontier lands of the colony, General Society of Mayflower exhibition has opened at the New relations with New England, Descendants, ISBN 0-930270-45-2. York State Museum in Albany. Hudson Valley foodways and Dutch 894 pp. plus xxxii, 134 ills., biblio- This exhibit, entitled “From the beer production, the endurance of graphy, index. Price is: $55 plus Collections,” will feature objects the Dutch legacy into nineteenth- $12 S&H. MA residents please add from many important collections, century New York, and contempo- 6.5% sales tax. Order from: May- including the South Street Seaport rary genealogical research on flower Families, PO Box 3297, Ply- Museum collection of over two colonial Dutch ancestors. mouth, MA 02361; 508-746-5058 million artifacts that arrived at the 238 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4384-3596-1. *** NYS Museum in 2006. Among the $34.95. www.sunypress.edu. Also by Jeremy Bangs, “Dutch objects that will be on view is a *** 1590 token from Amsterdam that Contributions to Religious was found in the cobbled floor of Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers Toleration,” in Church History, the warehouse built by Augustine and Sojourners. Leiden and the September 2010. Foundations of Plymouth Planta- Herrman. The cast of a basket as *** tion by Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs. well as its contents, retrieved from Empire at the Periphery: British the lot formerly owned by Cornelis Exalted in the 19th c. as virtuous exemplars of a proud pioneering Colonists, Anglo-Dutch Trade, and van Tienhoven, will also be the Development of the British featured. In addition, objects once spirit, and condemned in the 20th as crude oppressors of a peaceful Atlantic, 1621-1713 by Christian J. used and crafted by silversmith Koot. In this work Koot examines Daniel Van Voorhis, a later resident native people, the Pilgrims’ unavoidable importance in the the networks that connected British of Manhattan of Dutch ancestry, settlers in New York and the will be on display. narrative of American origins is reinforced annually in Thanks- Caribbean and Dutch traders in the Netherlands and in the Dutch Publications giving Day’s mythic commemora- tions. Do we not already know colonies in North America and the Caribbean, demonstrating that these A Beautiful and Fruitful Place more than enough about them? This interimperial relationships formed a Selected Rensselaerswijck Papers, book starts over, not simply to add incrementally to what is already core part of commercial activity in Volume 2. Edited by Elisabeth the early Atlantic World, operating Paling Funk and Martha Dickinson known about the Pilgrims in Leiden but instead to reconceive the alongside British trade. Koot Shattuck. New Netherland’s provides unique consideration of distinctive regional history as well question of who the Pilgrims were and what contributed to the choices how local circumstances shaped as the colony’s many relationships imperial development, reminding us with Europe and the seventeenth- that make them interesting. Leiden is where the character of the that empires consisted not only of century Atlantic world are featured elites dictating imperial growth in the second collection of papers Pilgrim Church and its subsequent colony took form. Controversies in from world capitals, but also of from the widely praised annual ordinary settlers in far-flung Rensselaerswijck Seminar. Leading politics and religion, customs of family life and society, obligations colonial outposts who often had scholars from both sides of the more in common with—and a Atlantic critique and offer the latest of labor and chances to play, questions of free will, democracy, greater reliance on—people from research on a dynamic range of foreign empires who shared their topics: the age of exploration, the separation of church and state, religious toleration, treatment of experiences of living at the edge of domestic life in New Netherland, a fragile, transitional world. the history and significance of the Indians – these form the matter of this book. 312 pages. ISBN: 9780814748831 West India Company, the complex $39.00. www.nyupress.org. era of Jacob Leisler, the southern Published and distributed by The De Nieu Nederlanse Marcurius 3

*** multiple pasts that stretch back as Washington Avenue at Dove Street. The Edge of New Netherland, far as the Middle Ages, pasts whose The buffet lunch will begin at 12:00 written and illustrated by L.F. legacies continue to shape the noon, with the presentation Tantillo. Over three centuries ago, present. ISBN 9780674055803 commencing at 12:30 p.m., the Dutch colonized a large portion Harvard U Press. 502pp. $35.00 followed by a question and answer of the northeastern US. The area period. called New Netherland included NNRC News The University Club of Albany New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Foundation, Inc. is presenting this most of Connecticut, and some of Eric Ruijssenaars, the New event, and one need not be a Pennsylvania. The fur trade drove a Netherland Research Center’s first member of the University Club to frontier economy. New Netherland Senior Scholar in Residence, is the attend. The cost for the luncheon was far removed from the political founder of Dutch Archives, a and lecture is $25. Reservations are disputes of Europe, but not immune historical research firm in Leiden, required and may be made by to the consequences that ensued. the Netherlands. Although a calling the University Club at The Edge of New Netherland takes specialist in the history of Russia 518-463-1151 us back in time and gives us a and the Netherlands, he is also a Ruijssenaars will also moderate glimpse of an emerging nation from scholar of the Brontë sisters in a panel on the impact of the 1664 a Dutch and Swedish perspective. It Brussels and has published two English takeover of New is an evocative look back along the books on the subject. Currently he Netherland at UAlbany’s annual banks of the Delaware River and an is researching the life of Abraham “Researching New York overview of New Netherland’s Staats. Conference” on November 17 at the interesting domain. To order, send In 1642, Abraham Staats arrived New York State Library. For more $22.50 plus $5.00 for S/H to: The in the Dutch colony of New information: http://bit.ly/a2YHCM. New Netherland Institute, Box 2536 Netherland to serve as a surgeon on Other speaking engagements are Empire State Plaza Station, Albany, Kiliaen ’s vast currently being planned. For more NY 12220-0536. patroonship of Rensselaerswijck, information or to schedule a now part of Albany and Rensselaer presentation, contact Ann Pfau: *** counties. Over the course of his life, [email protected]. Before the Revolution: America’s Staats became a magistrate of the Ancient Pasts by Daniel K. Richter. court, a captain of the burgher Totidem Verbis America began, we are often told, guard, the owner of a sloop that with the Founding Fathers, the men made regular trips to New [Picking up from the pervious issue who waged a revolution and created Amsterdam (New York City), and of our newsletter we continue our a unique place called the United an Indian language translator. journey along the “New Netherland States. We may acknowledge the Something of an oddity in rough- Highway” narrated by George early Jamestown and Puritan and-tumble New Netherland, he Damiano:] colonists and mourn the remained a very respectable man Route U.S. 9W serves the West dispossession of Native Americans, and was, for that reason, regularly Shore of the Hudson River but we rarely grapple with the called on to mediate disputes paralleling the Palisades Interstate complexity of the nation’s between his less respectable and Parkway, considered one of the pre-revolutionary past. In this more litigious neighbors. most scenic drives in the eastern pathbreaking revision, Daniel Ruijssenaars will discuss his United States. After traveling Richter shows that the United States research on Abraham Staats at a through Bergen County, New has a much deeper history than is luncheon on Wednesday, October 5 Jersey, Route U.S. 9W enters New apparent—that far from beginning at the National Register-listed York State in the community of with a clean slate, it is a nation with University Club of Albany, 141 Orangetown (Rockland County) De Nieu Nederlanse Marcurius 4

and continues on into Orange (now NYC) chartered in 1653. community encountered with Dutch County, New York. Both Broadway then continues roots is the city of Yonkers, which Orangetown and Orange County northward after intersecting Wall takes its name from Jonker (Squire) were named in 1683 to honor the Street through Times Square to a Adriaen van der Donck, now well- son-in-law of James, the Duke of point seven miles to the North known from Shorto’s Island at the York and Albany, Prince William where it joins Route U.S. 9 coming Center of the World. Traveling of Orange-Nassau and his wife across the George Washington beyond Yonkers, almost immediate- Mary, older daughter of James. Bridge from New Jersey. Some ly adjacent, is the literary venue of About 65 miles north of Fort Lee, 140 miles later it reaches Albany, “Sleepy Hollow County” which is NJ, Route U.S. 9W passes the U.S. New York. In that 140 miles the embodiment for Washington Military Academy at the West stretch, U.S. Route 9 is sometimes Irving’s writings as well as for the Point. called “Broadway” and sometimes other “Knickerbocker wits”. Continuing on, Route U.S. 9W, “Albany Post Road”. Venturing further northward on before it reaches the City of Albany Driving north from the George Route U.S. 9, Dutch place names and rejoins Route U.S. 9, it passes Washington Bridge, Route U.S. 9 inhabit the landscape, such as: through the following communities crosses the Harlem River, at that Tarrytown, Cortlandt, Verplanck, of Dutch interest in the New World: point also called “Spuyten Duyvil”. Peekskill and Fishkill. In the last New Paltz – an early French This is a tidal strait with treacher- community, the New York Huguenot settlement encouraged to ous currents that connects the Revolutionary Convention met in come into the area because of Hudson River with the East River, the Dutch Reformed Church to Dutch toleration. Also, New Paltz hence a Dutch colloquialism, which draw up the State’s first constitution is the home of one of the oldest in English can be rendered: “In promulgated in 1777. It declared: colleges in the State University of spite of the Devil”. Incidentally, it “That the free exercise and New York (SUNY) system. is these interconnected waterways enjoyment of religious profession Continuing north along 9W one that make Manhattan truly an island and worship, without discrimination encounters the early settlements of surrounded by arms of the sea. or preference, shall forever Esopus/Kingston/Hurley/Rondout, Upon crossing the Harlem River hereafter be allowed within this Saugerties, Catskill, Coxsackie, and one enters Marble Hill, a state…” Thus the human right of Coeymans. jurisdictional enclave of the “liberty of conscience” was so Now, turning again to the main Borough of Manhattan on the stated twelve years before the U.S. stem of U.S. Route 9, it crosses the mainland, and then the Riverdale Bill of Rights was adopted. Hudson River over the George section of the Bronx. Some 25 miles north of Fishkill Washington Bridge, entering Here, high on the promontory on Route U.S. 9, at Hyde Park, is uptown Manhattan. This highway overlooking the tidal turbulence of the ancestral home of President takes a turn left (northbound) upon the Hudson River meeting with the Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is a entering Manhattan and continues “Spuyten Duyvil,” there is an national historic site and houses the in that direction on Broadway. This impressive 100 foot Doric column FDR Presidential Library. Nearby is the same Broadway that begins at honoring the memory of Henry is “Val-Kill”, Mrs. Eleanor the Battery in Lower Manhattan and Hudson, topped by a statute of the Roosevelt’s office which also then intersects where navigator/explorer. Dominating the houses her memorabilia as “First the Dutch West India Company landscape, at sea level, below the Lady of the World.” erected a palisade or stockade Henry Hudson memorial obelisk, is (to be continued) (hence the name Wall Street), the graceful 840 foot steel arch reminiscent of a medieval bridge carrying the Henry Hudson enclosure, to delineate the Parkway over “Spuyten Duyvil”. municipality of Continuing northward, the next