Ship: Flower of Gelder (Gelderse Bloom)

Image Credits

Len Tantillo, View of Fort Orange 1652, Flower of Gelder at Anchor

Please see this site for more of Len Tantillo's historical paintings and prints:
http://www.lftantillo.com/shop/index.php

Description

The Flower of Gelder is famous for bringing immigrants and goods to New Netherland.   It was a galiot, a two masted merchant ship with several smaller cannon for protection, but with the flatter bottom of a fluyt

The Dutch merchant ship, "Flower of Gelderland," at anchor,1652, by LF Tantillo shows this ship and several others near Fort Orange, present day Albany.

By the 1650’s the Dutch settlement of Fort Orange and Rensselaerswyck had evolved into a thriving community of great diversity. What began as a simple fur trading outpost in 1614 now included agricultural development, lumber production, brick-making, brewing, and shipbuilding. New immigrant colonists mostly from the Netherlands were arriving on a regular basis. The painting features the arrival of the ship, Flower of Gelderland. Fort Orange and the houses of Beverwyck are seen in the right background. The arrival of large merchant ships in 17th century Albany was a rare occasion and always a cause of celebration and anticipation of news from home.


Additional information on the period and merchant trading vessels can be found in the film Broadsides by Docema:
http://www.broadsidethefilm.com/index.php

This ship made several journeys to New Netherland in the 1650s.