AMSTERDAM.- The Rijksmuseum is presenting the first major exhibition about the relationship between South Africa and the Netherlands. 400 years of emotive history in 300 items, most of which come from South Africa. Robert Jacob Gordon’s landscape panoramas, several metres long, occupy a prominent place in the exhibition. This Dutch traveller illustrated 18th-century South Africa, giving the country an identity. The imposing portraits of children born after 1994 – when apartheid was abolished – by the South African photographer Pieter Hugo illustrate South Africa’s future. Along with the exhibition, the NTR (Dutch public-service broadcaster) will be broadcasting a seven-part TV series presented by Hans Goedkoop.

South Africa and The Netherlands
Martine Gosselink, Head of the History Department at the Rijksmuseum and the exhibition’s producer: The arrival of the Dutch changed South Africa once and for all. The population’s composition and the introduction of slavery by the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) result from the ties with our country. But this also applies to the language, Afrikaans, the legal system, the protestant church, the introduction of Islam, the typical façades and the Dutch names on the map. The relationship with South Africa also changed the Netherlands. The Boer Wars around 1900, countless ‘Transvaal districts’ in Dutch cities and the violent anti-apartheid struggle of the 1980s symbolise a continuously tempestuous relationship. In this exhibition, around 300 paintings, drawings, documents, photos, items of furniture, souvenirs, tools and archaeological discoveries give a vivid impression of the culture shared and the influence reciprocated by the two countries.

“The 'Good Hope' exhibition illustrates a significant aspect of Dutch colonial history in all its nuances. A tale that is both painful and striking, but more especially disturbing and recognisable.” --Adriaan van Dis , The exhibition’s narrator, a Dutch writer and Africa specialist