Kwabcartouche met wapen van Amsterdam c. 1654 - 1678

This is Jacob Lutma’s “Kwabcartouche met wapen van Amsterdam,” made sometime in the mid-17th century. The Dutch Golden Age was a period of tremendous economic and cultural flourishing, and Amsterdam was at its epicenter. Lutma, who came from a family of goldsmiths, brings a sculptor's sensibility to this print. You see that in the swirling, almost fleshy forms of the cartouche, a new style called “auricular,” and the Amsterdam coat of arms right in its center. Consider the cartouche itself, a frame without a picture, a kind of heraldic device announcing Amsterdam. But what is the city announcing? Its wealth? Its power? Its global reach? The Dutch Golden Age was built on trade and colonization, and, of course, the brutal realities of slavery. What is included, and what is excluded, always matters. The image asks us to reflect on the stories we tell about ourselves and the ones we leave out. It invites us to contemplate the visible and the invisible histories embedded in the symbols and emblems that shape our identities.