Description
Book SynopsisAmsterdam painter Dirk Valkenburg (1675â1721) produced some of the earliest depictions of Indigenous and enslaved people on Surinamese sugar plantations â idealized images that conceal the violence of colonialism. He also painted ornate hunting still lifes and portraits of patrons whose wealth derived from colonial trade and slavery. Through this very variety of genres, Valkenburgâs paintings demonstrate the workings of the âwhite gazeâ. Edited by Willem de Rooij and Karwan Fatah-Black, this volume joins the first catalogue raisonnà of Valkenburgâs work â developed in collaboration with the RKD â Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague â and a critical reader of newly commissioned essays by leading international scholars. Uniting voices from art history, anthropology, postcolonial and queer studies across Europe and the Americas, it contextualizes Valkenburgâs oeuvre through interdisciplinary and transcultural dialogue. Conceived as a pendant to De Rooijâs installation Valkenburg at the Centraal Museum Utrecht (2025), the book and exhibition together invite reflection on how eighteenth-century Dutch elites used visual culture to normalize colonial ideology.
