Displaying the magnificent design of Amsterdam's Town Hall, including a mosaic of Tasman's discovery of New Zealand.

The most imposing of all European town halls of the seventeenth century, the Stady Huys of Amsterdam - now the Royal Palace - was emblematic of the riches that accompanied the Dutch Golden Age. Significantly, the building of the Stadt Huys in 1648 coincided with the Treaty of Münster, which ended the Eighty Year's War between the Dutch Republic and Spain.

Jacob van Campen (1596-1657) was a Dutch architect, best known for designing this town hall. He is accredited with introducing Neo-classicism to Dutch architecture, a style evident throughout the present example. The engravings show plans, views, and interior design details of the Stadt Huys, in a superb expression of early Classical Revivalism. The leader of Baroque sculpture in the Netherlands, Artus Quenllinus the Elder (1609-1668), also worked with Campen on the town hall; engravings of his marble statues, reliefs, and decorations are bound in the present work.

The engraving most of interest to us here is the fold-out panorama of a mosaic tile floor map of the world. This very early commemoration of the discoveries of Abel Tasman was first laid on the floor in the Stadt Huys's Civic Hall in 1648, only four years after Tasman's second voyage. It consists of the world in two hemispheres, either side of the northern night sky.

The mapmaker
Abel Jansz. Tasman (c1603-1659), was the first European explorer to reach and map the coastlines of Tasmania and New Zealand. After a series of shipwrecks had revealed some of the western coast of Australia, he was chosen by Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, to lead a voyage of discovery to the south, in 1642. The intention was to find a sea route south of Nuyts land, and east across the Pacific to South America. In his ships, the 'Heemskerck' and 'Zeehaen', over a course of ten months, Tasman mapped the coast of southwest Tasmania, the west coast of New Zealand, and the island groups of Tonga and New Guinea. On a second voyage, in 1644, Tasman and crew surveyed the southwest coast of New Guinea, and much of Australia's northern coastline, as shown here.

Although the longed for southern sea route was not found, Tasman was awarded the rank of commandeur on his return, and a pay rise was backdated to the beginning of his first voyage. Subsequently, Tasman was "appointed to the Council of Justice at Batavia. In mid-1647 he was sent on a mission to the King of Siam and was granted precedence over all Dutchmen in the kingdom. After that mission, he was given command of a fleet of eight vessels which sailed in May 1648 against the Spaniards. His conduct in this operation was unsatisfactory and, after his return in January 1649, proceedings were taken against him for having, when inflamed by liquor, treated one of his sailors in a barbarous way; as a result, he was removed from office during the governor-general's pleasure. He was formally reinstated in January 1651, but not long afterwards retired from the service and became a merchant in Batavia. He died there in affluent circumstances in 1659" (Forsyth).