Album met de kaart van de stad Rotterdam 1694 - 1783

This is the cover of an album with a map of the city of Rotterdam, made by Romeyn de Hooghe in the Netherlands in the late 17th or early 18th century. The album itself is a physical artefact with social and cultural meaning. What does it mean to create a portable container for a city, such as Rotterdam, a major port and economic hub of the Dutch Golden Age? The album’s cover is made of brown leather, decorated with gilt tooling, and a central metal emblem. It indicates wealth, status and the cultural importance of cartography and urban representation in Dutch society. Such an album would likely have been commissioned by a wealthy merchant or a civic leader, reflecting pride in the city's prosperity and governance. Rotterdam was one of the most important cities for the East and West India Companies at that time. The social historian's role is to unpack these meanings, drawing on archival sources, material culture studies, and art historical analysis to reveal the complex interplay between art, power, and society.