HOMEPAGE Marion Peters

I am working on two projects:

  1. A dissertation about Nicolaas Witsen as an amateur of science.
  2. A book combined with an exhibition (in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam) on Dutchmen in Coromandel (India) in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

1. NICOLAES WITSEN

NICOLAES WITSEN’s life (1641-1717) was jostled to and fro between his numerous official duties and his love of scholarship. He was a geographer by heart, but had to act as a magistrate. At the age of 21 he became famous for his book about shipbuilding. He was burgomaster of Amsterdam, board member of the East Indian Company (VOC) and extraordinary envoy for England. Besides that he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, conducted an impressive correspondence all over the world (Russia: Keller, Golowin; Germany: Ludolf, Leibniz; Italy: Stensen, Dati; East Indies: Rumphius, Herbert de Jager, Andreas Cleyer; the Cape), and possessed a reputed collection of coins, antiques, shells, naturalia, curiosities, etc. He also was a friend of Czar Peter the Great. To him he dedicated his maps of Russia and his book North and East Tartary.

About Nicolaes Witsen the following articles are published in Lias, a periodical about "Sources and documents relating to the early modern history of ideas":


Nicolaes Witsen and Gijsbert Cuper:
Two seventeenth-century Dutch burgomasters and their Gordian Knot.
With 4 figures and 131 footnotes. In Lias 16/1 (1989), pp. 111-151

During 33 years Witsen and Cuper corresponded about matters of geography and ethnology, a correspondence that was accompanied with numerous drawings and reports. Appended to this article is a description of ether's relationship with the travelling artist and writer Cornelis de Bruyn.



From the Study of Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717).:
His life with books and manuscripts.
With a portrait, 7 graphs and 97 footnotes. In: Lias 21/1 (1994), pp. 1-49

The analysis of Witsen’s library based on the system of François Furet with 3 supplements:

  1. Categories and numbers of books listed in the auction catalogue of 1747,
  2. Letter from Nicolaes Witsen to Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) concerning the borrowing of books for his study Scheepsbouw en Bestier (1671),
  3. Extract from the family tree of Cornelis Jacobz Witsen and Catharina Opsy.
    4.


    The meaning of nepotism, patronage and bookdedications in the life of Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717), burgomaster of Amsterdam.

    With two illustrations. This article is published in Lias Vol. 25/1 (1998) in Dutch as:

    Nepotisme, patronage en boekdedicaties bij Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717),burgemeester van Amsterdam. Ca. 45 pages.

     

    2. DUTCHMEN AT THE COAST OF COROMANDEL IN THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURY

    Since 1994 the photographer Ferry André de la Porte and I, Marion Peters, are investigating the Dutch remains in India. In total we spent 10 months there. Because of the difficulty of the job, we concentrate us now on the East-Coast or the "Coast of Coromandel". By now the remaining fortifications, "graffiti", grave-yards and almost all the graves are being photographed. The exhibition will take place in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam in 2002, from Februar till May.

    At the University of Amsterdam I received degrees in the following studies:

    1. Dutch language and literature (Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde)
    2. Science of literature (Algemene Literatuurwetenschap)
    3. Art History (Kunstgeschiedenis)

    Visitor #