Mirror of Empire Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century

"Mirror of Empire" is the catalogue accompanying an exhibition, sponsored by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, traveling to Minneapolis, Toledo (Ohio) and Los Angeles in 1990 and 1991. It is the first survey in English of Dutch marine art of the 17th century and includes many of the works of Willem Van de Velde the Elder and Willem Van de Velde the Younger. The catalogue focuses on paintings, drawings, prints, sea charts and related cartographical material while stressing the relationship among marine art and Dutch history, commerce and the tremendous significance of Dutch ship design. The book provides biographies of Dutch marine artists and contributors' essays on related topics that help explain the works of art within a larger historical context. These topics include the Dutch trade routes that assured the Dutch Republic its preeminent position in 17th-century Europe, the design and function of Dutch ships, the iconography of Dutch marine paintings as found in Dutch genre pictures of the period, and the importance of Dutch cartography to Western civilization.