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Tag: Fagel Collection

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Tulip Time in Fagel

Ornamental head-piece from Abraham Munting’s Nauwkeurige Beschryving der Aardgewassen [Accurate Description of Terrestrial Plants] (Leiden, 1696). Shelfmark: Fag.GG.3.1,2

TULPENTIJD – the Dutch have a special name for it – the tulip season in the Netherlands, running from late March to mid-May when the bulb fields are streaked with glorious colour and 7 million flowers are blooming in the Keukenhof gardens. Emerging from the Fagel Collection at this season is evidence of the long established association of tulips with the Netherlands, represented in terms of botany and horticulture, scientific study and beautiful illustrations. The tulip reigns in Holland at this time of the year, in private and botanical gardens, in parks, houses and art galleries, in pots outside apartments and shops, on the streets and in transit in bicycle baskets. Continue reading “Tulip Time in Fagel”

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Overwintering in Fagel

“The True and perfect Description of three Voyages soo strange and woonderfull, that the like had never been heard of before”    –   Journal of Gerrit de Veer, 1598

Ten months of Arctic winter, ice-bound on the island of Novaya Zemlya  (Nova Zemla) “…with the cruell beares, and other monsters of the sea, and the unsupportable and extreme cold that is to be found in those places”. This was the ordeal undergone by the crew of a Dutch expedition which set out on the 10 May, 1596 from the port of Amsterdam to find a passage to Asia by a northern route. Two ships sailed out, one under Jan Cornelisz Rijp, the other under Jacob van Heemskerck with navigator and cartographer Willem Barentsz as expedition leader. Van Heemskerck’s ship became trapped in the ice off the island of Novaya Zemlya, when Rijp had already turned back, and the crew of seventeen were forced to overwinter on the island. Thanks to the journal of crew member Gerrit de Veer we have a detailed description of the experience, along with a series of contemporary engravings by an anonymous artist. De Veer was an officer on Van Heemskerck’s ship, and he published a rich description of three adventurous voyages (1594, 1595, 1596), to find the Northeast Passage. Continue reading “Overwintering in Fagel”

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On the Shelly Shores of Fagel

Detail from Allegory on the Abdication of Emperor Charles V in Brussels by Frans Francken II (1581-1642) oil on panel. (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Exotic shells from the Dutch Colonies inspired many painters during the era of European exploration and discovery. The perfection and beauty of their forms and colours could be seen in shell cabinets and in wonderfully illustrated books on natural history such as those in the Fagel Collection. This library belonged to the Fagel family of the Netherlands and is now part of Research Collections in the Library of Trinity College Dublin.

Continue reading “On the Shelly Shores of Fagel”