Recens Edita Totius Novi Belgii, in America Septentrionali [An Updated View of New Netherlands in North America]

Matthäus Seutter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Augsburg mapmaker Seutter based this rendering of America’s eastern seaboard on seventeenth-century precedents. A vignette view of Manhattan reproduces one created in 1654 to mark Holland’s brief repossession of the city. By 1730, Britain was in control, indicated here by George II seated below to receive Hermes, Athena, and Hera (symbolizing commerce, wisdom, and wealth), followed by dark-skinned figures carrying raw materials—an allegorized celebration of colonization that ignores the suffering endured by native and enslaved peoples. On the map, Native American place names predominate, with turkeys, moose, bears, and beavers used to indicate wilderness areas. Geographical inaccuracies abound and include the placement of the Meer de Irocoisen (Lake Champlain) east of the Versche (Connecticut) River.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.