Commercialising Eden: Frans Post’s drawings of the Fortunate Isles

Abstract

Frans Post’s sketchbook documents Count Johan Maurits van Nassau Siegen's 1636 transatlantic voyage to Brazil through drawings of the coastlines encountered along the way, including the Canary Islands, Madeira, and Cape Verde. This article situates the sketchbook within the artist’s larger oeuvre as well as broader Dutch colonial visual culture, in order to examine the extent to which Post’s representation of the islands reflect the particular importance of maritime space and shorelines to the Dutch colonial project. Post’s combination of the familiar conventions of cartography and the Haarlemse School of landscape frames the islands as practical opportunities for colonial expansion, presenting these shores not as mythologized paradises, but as “plaisante plaetsen” brimming with economic potential.Frans Post’s sketchbook documents Count Johan Maurits van Nassau Siegen's 1636 transatlantic voyage to Brazil through drawings of the coastlines encountered along the way, including the Canary Islands, Madeira, and Cape Verde. This article situates the sketchbook within the artist’s larger oeuvre as well as broader Dutch colonial visual culture, in order to examine the extent to which Post’s representation of the islands reflect the particular importance of maritime space and shorelines to the Dutch colonial project. Post’s combination of the familiar conventions of cartography and the Haarlemse School of landscape frames the islands as practical opportunities for colonial expansion, presenting these shores not as mythologized paradises, but as “plaisante plaetsen” brimming with economic potential.