7 ForewordBart Rutten11 Designing DifferenceWillem de Rooij and Karwan Fatah-BlackESSAYSLife and Work31 Dirk Valkenburg: A Painter in Amsterdamand SurinameMark Ponte45 The Rebellion at PalmeneriboFrank Dragtenstein55 The Standardized Production ofDirk Valkenburg’s Trophy Still LifesJulie Hartkamp77 Dirk Valkenburg’s Hunting Still Lifesin a Colonial ContextMaurice Saß91 Dirk Valkenburg as a Portrait Painter:Education and NetworkSabine Craft-GiepmansAppraisal109 The History of Renaming andReinterpreting Dirk Valkenburg’sGathering of Enslaved People on One ofJonas Witsen’s Plantations in SurinameRebecca Parker Brienen127 The Market Appreciation and Provenanceof Dirk Valkenburg’s OeuvreMatthies KlinkTropics143 Histories and Historicities: Beyond thePicture FrameRenzo S. Duin, Philip Dikland,Agir Axwijk161 Traumascapes, or When Dirk Valkenburg’sLandscape Paintings Are Seen fromthe Perspective of the SubalternRenzo S. Duin and Agir Axwijk181 Slavery as an Aquatic Still LifeAlex van Stipriaan195 Meta Race Play and Historical RescueWill Furtado FredoVisual Culture205 Dirk Valkenburg’s CoconutsBenjamin Schmidt227 Edenic Tropics and Decadent HumanityLilia Moritz Schwarcz245 Labouring Bodies: Dirk Valkenburg’sGathering of Enslaved People on Oneof Jonas Witsen’s Plantations in Surinamein ContextSarah ThomasAfterword263 The Meaning of a FlagKarin AmatmoekrimCATALOGUE RAISONNÉ270 Introduction274 Game and Hunting Scenes370 Animal Scenes400 Fruit Still Lifes410 Works Made in Suriname462 Portraits504 Copies after Lost Portraits509 Dirk Valkenburg’s Estate Inventory:A Transcription521 Bibliography542 Archives543 Databases545 Author Biographies549 IndexINSTALLATION VIEWS566 List of Exhibited WorksAmsterdam painter Dirk Valkenburg (1675–1721) produced some of the earliest depictions of Indigenous and enslaved people on Surinamese sugar plantations – idealized images that conceal the violence of colonialism. He also painted ornate hunting still lifes and portraits of patrons whose wealth derived from colonial trade and slavery. Through this very variety of genres, Valkenburg’s paintings demonstrate the workings of the ‘white gaze’. Edited by Willem de Rooij and Karwan Fatah-Black, this volume joins the first catalogue raisonné of Valkenburg’s work – developed in collaboration with the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague – and a critical reader of newly commissioned essays by leading international scholars. Uniting voices from art history, anthropology, postcolonial and queer studies across Europe and the Americas, it contextualizes Valkenburg’s oeuvre through interdisciplinary and transcultural dialogue. Conceived as a pendant to De Rooij’s installation 'Valkenburg' at the Centraal Museum Utrecht (2025), the book and exhibition together invite reflection on how eighteenth-century Dutch elites used visual culture to normalize colonial ideology.