Portrait of the Traveller with Burin and Printing Press. The Representation of Dutch Maritime Expansion in the De Bry Collection of Voyages

When the Dutch Republic first embarked on overseas expansion, its impact was immediate. There wa a huge demand for travel accounts and the De Bry publishing house in Frankfurt caterred to this. The collection of voyages was indisputably the officina's ‘magnum opus', consisting of reports of European expeditions to Africa, Asia, and the New World. In order to meet the demands of their heterogeneous, international group of readers, the De Brys stressed the otherness of the natives encountered on distant shores, juxtaposed by European technical expertise and civility. The early Dutch maritime expeditions, by Gerrit de Veer and Barent Jansz, but also by other early icons of adventure like Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Willem Lodewijcksz, and Pieter de Marees, were made to fit this pattern.