Bakje uit het wrak van de Oost-Indiëvaarder Princesse Maria 1660 - 1686

This tiny bowl, just a few centimeters across, was salvaged from the wreck of the Dutch East India ship, the Princesse Maria. We don’t know when it was made, or by whom, but we can imagine it was probably made of brass. It would have likely been cast, then finished on a lathe, a technology enabling precise and uniform shaping. Consider the Dutch East India Company, which epitomized global trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. The amount of human labor involved in the production of this object, when you factor in the making of the bowl, and the extraction of metal, not to mention the construction of the ship itself, becomes unfathomable. Even a simple bowl can illuminate the complex intertwining of craft, industry, and global commerce, reminding us that every object has a story to tell beyond its immediate appearance.