Handelsetiket van lakenkoopmannen Pierre & Abraham Cornabé uit Leiden 1753

This is a trade label of cloth merchants Pierre and Abraham Cornabé from Leiden, made by Jan Wandelaar in 1753. It's an etching, a print made by incising an image onto a metal plate, in this case to be affixed to bales of fabric for export. Seated on the right, a figure is shown at ease atop labeled parcels. To the left, other figures seem to be in the midst of conducting business. The setting is a busy port, full of exotic people and goods brought from far away. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch culture was a mercantile one, and the cloth industry, centered in Leiden, was a major source of wealth. This image celebrates and promotes that culture, but it does so through the visual codes of class and empire, a self-conscious display of Dutch identity. As historians, our job is to explore the assumptions behind that identity, to contextualize the way that wealth was represented and the social conditions that made it possible. To do this we consult historical documents such as trade records, maps, and travel journals.