Johan Maurits

At the Mauritshuis, we long considered Johan Maurits primarily from an art historical perspective. But by exclusively looking at Johan Maurits through this lens, we only see a limited part of his story. Which is exactly why we want to look more broadly at his time in Dutch Brazil, a time in which the slave trade and slavery played a central role.

In the museum, we have installed a room with paintings that shine a light on Johan Maurits, Dutch Brazil and the history of the Mauritshuis. In the video, our director Martine Gosselink explains why we installed this room. And why it’s important to look at 17th-century artworks and the history of the Mauritshuis from different perspectives.

In her solo dance Sugar Coated, choreographer and dancer Junadry Leocaria expresses the history of slavery in a powerful and moving way: ‘To dance in the Golden Room felt like a small victory for myself and my ancestors. As a Curaçaoan, I was given the chance to honour the story of my ancestors in the Sugar Palace’s most beautiful room. The pain, the grief, the injustice and the struggle. But also the power, the perseverance, the creativity, the victory, the relief and the ability to forgive. My ancestors come partly from West Africa, the Gold Coast where Johan Maurits enslaved the population and transported them to South America on his fleet. As a result, I feel a direct connection to the Sugar Palace. Performing my solo in the Golden Room felt like healing. An ultimate opportunity to acknowledge and embrace our shared history through art. Healing for everyone, black and white.’

Frans Post was one of the artists who travelled to Brazil with Johan Maurits. This landscape with a view of the island Itamaracá is the first painting that we know of by Post. And the first that a European artist made of and in Brazil.

Four men stand at the water’s edge: two Portuguese and two enslaved Africans. Their presence turns this painting into more than just a simple Brazilian landscape – Post unintentionally shows us that the inequality between black and white was tied to skin colour.

This painting is a portrait of three people. Standing in the centre is Princess Maria of Orange, with to the left her nephew Hendrik and to the right a second boy. His name wasn’t recorded. He was one of the black servants at the court and, like many other young boys, he was probably brought to the Dutch Republic by the WIC. In his case, as a gift for the princess.

Singer-songwriter Josephine Zwaan was inspired by this painting to write the song King: ‘Looking at the paintings of Dutch Brazil, I was moved by the gazes of the black workers. What questions, emotions and memories were hidden in those eyes? Maybe I was looking into the eyes of a prince. After all, royals were transported from the west coast of Africa too. Last year, my father became the chief of our tribe in Ghana, a traditional ceremony that hasn’t changed for centuries. This brought those eyes even closer. In the present-day, the paintings ask us to respect that which we don’t know. Sometimes a king might look different from what you imagine.’

The English princess Mary Stuart stands ready for a fancy-dress ball. She wears an ostrich feather turban and a Brazilian feathered cloak. Her outfit is a clear example of what we today would call ‘cultural appropriation’: Mary, a European princess, is using cultural expressions from other, non-European people. As a fancy-dress outfit for a party.

Mary’s servant is still fastening a string of pearls, but Mary seems not to notice him. The boy is reduced to an ‘exotic’ accessory – with his presence, the artist is emphasising Mary’s white skin and elevated position.

In Dutch 17th-century painting, people with African roots often have stereotyped roles. They appear in portraits of wealthy Dutch citizens, for example, as servants or enslaved individuals. But this painting is entirely different, because Rembrandt painted these two men just as they were, paying attention to their character and individuality. For this reason alone it is a unique and powerful painting, which demonstrates that Dutch society in the 17th century was more diverse than you may have thought.

A girl aged around three poses next to a high chair. She is beautifully dressed and wears gold jewellery. Lying on the high chair are some sweet treats, made with sugar from Brazil. These connect the luxury world of this young girl to the harsh reality of the people working on the sugar cane plantations: a reality that often remained invisible, both in the Dutch Republic and in Dutch painting. And yet all these luxury goods such as coffee, tea, tobacco, cocoa and sugar were made by people who had been enslaved.

In 2019, we organised an exhibition about Johan Maurits and Brazil at the Mauritshuis. In the exhibition we considered Johan Maurits’s story from different perspectives. Many of the paintings that you see here also appeared in the exhibition.

Exhibitions are often organised as the culmination of years of research. This exhibition was different: it was only the starting point. We invited a group of experts to write stories to accompany the artworks based on their professional and personal backgrounds. This created a rich picture of the different ways in which you can look at paintings. And at the histories they recount.

The exhibition Shifting Image was the starting point for an international research project: Revisiting Dutch Brazil and Johan Maurits. The focus of this research is subjects that until now have received little attention, such as Johan Maurits’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. Although there has been a lot of research into this period, there is still much we don’t know. New findings from the project will be added to the room that focuses on Johan Maurits in the museum.

In 2020, a ground-breaking article resulting from the research project was published. In the article, Erik Odegard (head of the research project) and Carolina Monteiro (Ph.D. student at Leiden University) describe how Johan Maurits earned money from smuggling and illegally trading in enslaved Africans.

Four further historians are working on the research project: Mark Ponte, Irene Maria Vicente Martín, André Luís Bezerra Ferreira and Miguel Geraldes Rodrigues. They are working on their research in the Netherlands, Italy and Brazil and are consulting archives around the world.