Daily Life in Holland in the Year 1566 And the Story of My Ancestor's Treasure Chest
by: Poortvliet, Rien

Hardcover. New York, Harry Abrams, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 208 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Illustrated heavily by author. To create this latest gem, Poortvliet found inspiration in the rich legacy of Dutch landscape and genre painting traditions and in his own Dutch heritage as well. He became intrigued by a document dating from the year 1566 that revealed the existence of an armoire owned by his distant ancestor, Jacob Jansz Poortvliet. That armoire led Rien Poortvliet to come upon something valuable indeed - a treasure trove of insights into the world of his ancestor. Characteristically evocative, the words and images in Daily Life in Holland are rich in detail and delicate in coloration, and perhaps the most beautiful of any of Poortvliet's works to date. In this fascinating saga, he recreates the lives of his forebears as they toiled and celebrated their way through daily existence. He does not conjure up a romantic vision of the past - the Dutch countryside was not all tulips and windmills! There were adversity and hard work, and we learn that 1566 was an extraordinary year in Holland, marked by famine and plague, great freezes, floods and droughts, comets and earthquakes, and an invasion by the Spanish as well.