Gezicht op het West-Indisch Pakhuis te Amsterdam 1665

Jan Veenhuysen created this print of the West-Indisch Pakhuis in Amsterdam in the 17th century. The scene is dominated by symbols of global trade: ships bearing flags of commerce, the West India House itself, and a boat laden with barrels. Consider the barrel, repeated many times over. These containers speak to the exchange of goods, a movement of commodities laden with the weight of human labor and desire. The barrels are reminiscent of vessels used in antiquity, like amphorae, transporting wine and oil across the Mediterranean. The motif of the vessel, a container, appears throughout art history. It recurs across cultures in the subconscious human desire to fill the vessel with meaning, value, and sustenance, and in this print, these barrels—these vessels—carry the unacknowledged weight of colonial exchange. This image, rendered with the stark clarity of an etching, engages us on a subconscious level, inviting us to reflect on the cyclical and often obscured patterns of history.