NEW YORK.- Launching the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of New York harbor and the river that bears his name, Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson—the first major exhibition to mark this occasion and the first exhibition of its kind—will open at the Museum of the City of New York on April 4, the day that Hudson set sail from Amsterdam on his third voyage in pursuit of a new route to Asia. The exhibition will feature some 275 objects from 40 lenders, in a design that ingeniously recalls Henry Hudson’s ship, the Half Moon; it will feature rare, 17th-century objects, many of which have never before been exhibited in this country. The exhibition will investigate the connections between Amsterdam, the lead port city of the 17th-century Dutch Republic, and New Amsterdam, the lead settlement in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, to reveal their shared history of entrepreneurship and economic innovation, republican political protest, and diverse religious views bolstered by the Dutch commitment to freedom of conscience. In doing so, it considers the lasting impact of the 40-year Dutch colonial experiment in laying the foundation for what is now New York City. Little known, for example, is the fact that the concept of a company having a perpetual life with stockholders owning shares was an invention of the Dutch, and the Dutch East India Company was the first joint-stock company to have a permanent existence. This approach to business—this innovation—helped to set the stage for New York’s emergence and continuing status as a financial and business center.

The exhibition is the first of three exhibitions that the Museum has organized in conjunction with the Quadricentennial Celebration, and will be followed by: Mannahatta/Manhattan, a collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society exploring the natural world Hudson encountered through the use of stunning computer-based simulations, opening on May 18th; and Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered, which will feature the work of renowned contemporary Dutch photographers whose images surprisingly reveal a measure of New York City life today, and which opens on June 10th.