Introduction

On October 1771, a merchant ship out of Amsterdam, Vrouw Maria, crashed off the stormy Finnish coast, taking her historic cargo to the depths of the Baltic Sea. The vessel was delivering a dozen Dutch masterpiece paintings to Europe’s most voracious collector: Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Among the lost treasures was The Nursery, an oak-paneled triptych by Leiden fine painter Gerrit Dou, Rembrandt’s most brilliant student and Holland’s first international superstar artist. Dou’s triptych was long the most beloved and most coveted painting of the Dutch Golden Age, and its loss in the shipwreck was mourned throughout the art world.

The shipwreck Vrouw Maria became a maritime legend, confounding would-be salvagers for more than two hundred years. Finally, in July 1999, a daring Finnish wreck hunter found Vrouw Maria, upright on the sea floor and perfectly preserved. The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure masterfully recounts the fascinating tale of the Vrouw Maria—her loss and discovery—weaving together the rise and fall of the artist whose priceless masterpiece was the jewel of the wreckage.

In this riveting history and maritime adventure, Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees bring to vivid life the personalities that drove (and are still driving) this compelling tale. The book evokes Robert Massie’s depiction of Russian high politics and culture, Simon Schama’s insights into Dutch Golden Age art history, and Gary Kinder’s spirit of adventure on the beguiling Archipelago Sea.

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Excerpt

Prologue: The Wreck

The approaching vessel struck sail before the bronze battery, reminding all captains that further passage required payment to the Danish king. Through sallow mist the towers of Castle Kronborg loomed. The citadel of Elsinore, home to Hamlet’s ghosts, and gateway to the Baltic Sea.

The young skipper deliberately maneuvered his brig past Kronborg’s steep sandstone walls and brawny earthen ramparts, mindful of his secret cargo. Beyond the fortress, the town’s cascading red-tiled roofs and jabbing rust-green spires came into sight. The cramped harbor swayed and rattled with the spars and rigging of two dozen jostling merchant ships. English and Dutch colors snapped in the breeze. The captain secured an outlying berth and set down a launch in the direction of Tollbooth Quay, the central dock leading to the Customs House.

From King Eric’s time, in the 15th century, all ships passing through the Sound—the narrow strait separating Scania, the southern tip of Sweden, from Zealand, the central isle of Denmark—were required to stop and pay an entry fee, the Sound Dues, or risk the wrath of Kronborg’s gunners. Fixed between 1 and 2 percent of the value of a ship’s cargo, this royal protection racket was the main source of wealth of the Danish state for four centuries. The two-hundred-foot walk down Tollbooth Quay presented its own challenges, as dues-paying shipmasters navigated a human surge of longshoremen at work, sailors at liberty, and thieves on the prowl. Approaching the dock, the captain clutched a leather satchel; his demeanor stiffened.

The anxious skipper was fortunate to catch the attention of one of the uniformed customs officers patrolling Tollbooth Quay, and was hurriedly escorted past the touts and thugs. Elsinore was in good form, decorated with half-timbered row houses, cobblestoned alleyways, and a newly renovated harbor front. The centerpiece was the new mansard-capped Customs House, delivered in a restrained rococo style that suited Lutheran sensibility. The captain entered and declared his business.

He was Reynoud Lourens, master of the Vrouw Maria, a merchant vessel out of Amsterdam, en route to Saint Petersburg, Russia. The ship was an eighty-five-foot snow-brig, double-masted and square-rigged. Sturdy, steerable, and spacious, the snow-brig was a favored craft among Baltic traders. A customs officer drew up a new document: Dutch ship, no. 508; September 23, 1771. From his satchel, Lourens produced an itemized cargo list and a stack of letters embossed with diplomatic stamps. Lourens was impatient to expedite the transaction. He was already a week behind schedule because of late summer winds in the Atlantic. Lourens was more so anxious about the prize hidden in the ship’s hold, the property of Russian empress Catherine the Great.

The officer looked down at the authoritative documents and up at the awkward captain. It was an exotic and expensive list of goods, intended to affirm the elite status of Russian high society. Sugar and coffee, indigo and brazilwood from the Americas; fine linen and woven fabric from the Low Countries; silver, zinc, and mercury for Saint Petersburg’s master craftsmen; but that was not all. The officer readily surmised there was additional cargo of special interest. His inquiry met brusque resistance. It was the business of monarchs only. The Danish king was zealous about collecting the Sound Dues, except from fellow sovereigns, who were extended the courtesy of a royal exemption. Dropping the matter, the officer wrote “and assorted merchandise” into the ledger, then returned his attention to the cargo list. The Vrouw Maria was assessed a hefty passage bill of nearly four hundred Danish rigsdalers for the items declared. Lourens paid without protest and departed with haste.

Returning to the vessel, Captain Lourens was accompanied by a navigation pilot provided by the Customs House, a standard procedure. The crew rowed the ship away from its harbor mooring until, catching a breeze, the Vrouw Maria gained momentum. Starboard, Lourens admired the hillside rising over the town, where bursting late summer flora embraced the neoclassical Marienlyst Palace. Portside, he glimpsed a Danish Man-of-War, a fierce sixty-gun ship of the line deterrent to would-be toll evaders. The channel through the southern Sound was tapered and twisted; the pilot stayed aboard for two days until the ship reached the safety of deep water and the Baltic Sea. Lourens scrutinized the pilot as he rowed back to shore, satisfied that his secret cargo was not betrayed.

To the unsuspecting, the Vrouw Maria was an ordinary trader, hauling barrels of rye grain or salted herring. In fact, she was a treasure ship. Concealed in the hold was a cache of more than a dozen masterpiece paintings, destined for the collection of Catherine the Great. The Russian empress was unrestrained when indulging her favorite passions, one of which was art. The Vrouw Maria’s secret cargo was the tsarina’s most recent splurge: the highest-priced items from the estate sale of renowned Amsterdam wine merchant and art collector Gerrit Braamcamp. It was the most dazzling assemblage of Flemish and Dutch Old Masters ever to reach the auctioneer’s block. Included in Catherine’s treasure trove was the auction’s biggest prize, Gerrit Dou’s oak-panel triptych, The Nursery. Dou was Rembrandt’s student, who surpassed his master to become the premier artist of his time. And Dou’s triptych was the most admired and coveted artwork produced during the Dutch Golden Age.

Shipmaster Reynoud Lourens was only twenty-four years old. He had commanded the “Russia Run” three times previously, twice at the helm of the Vrouw Maria. For Dutch investors in the Saint Petersburg trade route, Lourens was valued for his experience with unpredictable Baltic tempests and petulant Russian princes. His business at the Customs House concluded, Reynoud stood braced against the laurel-carved oak rail and surveyed the stark shoreline. Along the water’s edge, a clattering of jackdaws quarreled, swirled, and settled, then quarreled, swirled, and settled again, as they came together for a winter roost. It was a reminder that the Vrouw Maria still had eight hundred miles to go.

The ship exited the Sound and entered the lower Baltic Proper. Lourens set a course north by northeast. To portside, the Vrouw Maria would follow Sweden’s fir-clad eastern shore, home of legendary ogre-slayer Beowulf; then past the island of Gotland, from whence Viking longboats embarked on expeditions of discovery and demolition. To starboard, the ship would sail by prosperous Danzig, central granary of the old Hansa trading league; then along the famed Amber Coast, a sandy stretch of East Prussia and Poland; next came the western shores of Livonia, where five hundred years earlier Europe’s defiant pagan tribes made their last stand in the Northern Crusades. With luck, fair winds from the south could help the Vrouw Maria make up lost time along this stretch.

Moving into the upper Baltic Proper, the voyage became trickier. With the outer islands of Stockholm distant in the west, the ship would be exposed to the whims of the sea. Here three colliding currents from the Bay of Riga, the Gulf of Finland, and the Bay of Bothnia caused unpredictable surface conditions. In this part of the Baltic, sudden storm surges peaked in the autumn months. The captain would need to turn due east into the Gulf of Finland and locate “the fairway,” a narrow current that ran along the southern Finnish coast, and perilously close to the Archipelago Sea. The siren-like Archipelago was beguiling and deadly, where lay tens of thousands of rocky islets and hidden boulders. Known to sailors as the graveyard of the Baltic, the archipelago was the resting spot of countless wrecks. Once the Vrouw Maria was safely inside the fairway, Lourens had a two-hundred-mile final leg through the Gulf of Finland into shallow Neva Bay and the Baltic’s easternmost anchorage, Saint Petersburg, where Empress Catherine awaited her prize.

Sober and devout, Lourens mustered a crew that was likewise; not an easy task, even in Calvinist Amsterdam. Steadfast faith was the young captain’s ally against the capricious sea. As shipmaster, he felt a moral obligation to reinforce Christian dutifulness in his crew. And so, on the night of October 3rd, following supper, Lourens was as usual below deck leading evening prayers. Only two crewmen were left on the main deck to operate the vessel as she made for the fairway. The assembled sailors were likely distracted from their spiritual communion by a relentless assault of wind and waves.

From the start, the voyage had encountered adverse weather, which now turned ominous. All day dark low-lying clouds blotted out the land and sky, making it impossible to get an accurate bearing on the ship’s location. In the aft a helmsman wrestled the ship’s wheel, while in the fore a rigger trimmed the sails. The pair struggled to tack eastward in the face of an onrushing gale. The Vrouw Maria was caught in an Arctic rager, an autumn hurricane, which struck without warning in the upper Baltic when Icelandic lows clashed with Siberian highs.

The praying below became more earnest, the voices more urgent. The heaving ship was jolted by a crash from underneath and abruptly stopped rolling. Captain and crew dreaded the meaning. They rushed up to the main deck to confirm that their boat was grounded on a rocky outcrop. The storm had pushed them off course to the northwest. The Vrouw Maria was stranded in the Archipelago Sea.

The thick oak hull took the blow without breaking, the hold remained dry. Lourens knew the ship was more vulnerable aground than adrift, and quickly considered his options. Suddenly an immense wave lifted the vessel off the rock and tossed it back into the sea. The helmsman instinctively resumed his fight against the storm for control of the ship. The prow climbed the cresting whitecaps, teetered for a moment at the peak, then crashed down the backside into the swirling trough. Each frigid splashdown left the crew gasping and stinging. In the tumbling blackness the correct course was indiscernible. No one yet knew how far leeway the Vrouw Maria was off course, or how at this moment she was surrounded by the archipelago’s menacing boulders.

The hull cracked hard when it struck the rocks, ripping the rudder from the keel. The wounded vessel foundered; seawater rushed in. A combination blast of wind and wave knocked the Vrouw Maria onto her side, sending barrels and men sprawling. Lourens staggered to his feet, and barked commands to take in the mainsheets and to drop anchor starboard side. The ship lurched back upright. Two men were sent below to assess the damage. They reported that the sternpost was smashed and that the rear hold was already three feet underwater. The ship carpenter hastily went to work on a makeshift patch and the men began pumping and bailing. The crew labored through the night without pause, as the ship thrashed about. By morning, the brig was finally holding up. But prevailing winds and precarious mooring made it dangerous to stay on board. Lourens gave the order to abandon ship.

The weary crew loaded a few provisions and personal belonging into two skiffs, and slogged through the surf toward a fog shrouded skerry, eerily appearing for a moment and then vanishing on the horizon. A base camp was organized on this grim granite slab. Lourens sent a boat out to look for help.

In the afternoon his men returned, accompanied by a second boat with five fishermen, speaking an obscure Swedish dialect. The men had rowed about five miles from their island village on Jurmo, at the outer edge of the Archipelago Sea. Lourens was dismayed to learn his location. The captain reported his situation, and the men left, promising to return with reinforcements next day. Their readiness to help was motivated in part by the universal code of seamen to come to one another’s aid, and in part by the unique chance for poor fishermen to enhance their meager existence. That evening the storm broke. The Vrouw Maria emerged through the parting cloud cover, an oscillating silhouette against a slate and rose streaked sky.

The next morning was clear and calm. Lourens was hopeful that the islanders would bring sufficient manpower to rescue the crippled vessel. Without a rudder, he would not dare to sail in the archipelago, but the ship could be towed to a safe port and the keel repaired. The cargo, meanwhile, could be conveyed by longboat to shore, where arrangements could be made for overland transport along the Kungsvagen, the King’s Road. The old post road was the central land artery of Sweden’s northern empire. The eastern branch ran from Turku, Finland to Vyborg, Russia, swooshing through pine and birch forests. The overland route was preferred in winter months, when carriage sleds could travel directly over frozen rivers and wetlands. The Vrouw Maria’s secret cargo, reasoned Lourens, could still reach Saint Petersburg and Empress Catherine by year’s end.

The captain’s contemplations were cut short by a loud call—boat ahoy. A small craft with nine noisy islanders arrived in camp, who together with the crew headed out to the brig. As they rowed closer, Lourens could see that the stern was sitting conspicuously low in the swell. Climbing aboard several men hurried below to discover that the rear hold was submersed in eight feet of seawater. The battered hull could not be mended, and the leaking ship was weighed down and listing.

Lourens acted first to steady the wobbly vessel. Ten barrels were removed from the flooded aft, placed in the small boats and rowed back to their camp. The captain next ordered all unnecessary weight on the main deck or in the rigging above to be jettisoned. With a belly full of pitching seawater, a top-heavy ship was in danger of capsizing. Finally, all hands were directed to commence pumping and bailing. The men toiled through the morning to remove water from the rear hold and prevent it from penetrating the fore section. At midday, they paused briefly to devour a meal of black bread and lutefisk, chunks of lye-cured cod, a Scandinavian seafaring staple.

Progress was slow. The ship had two manually operated bilge pumps, but these provided only half the force capacity needed for a vessel of this size. The overworked pumps could barely keep ahead of the leaking. The fishermen departed in the late afternoon, vowing to come back next day with more men. When the crew finally climbed down into the rowboats to return to camp, they had managed to reduce the water level inside the hull by just one foot. Lourens was devastated. The Vrouw Maria was slowly sinking.

The captain was determined not to surrender his ship to the archipelago. But to save the Vrouw Maria, he needed to get the water out of the hold, and to do that he needed more hands. Early next morning Lourens sent two skiffs out to the islands to round up additional help. Twenty-six volunteers eventually joined the rescue effort, though some were surely more interested in scavenging than salvaging. Meanwhile, high winds roused hostile waves, making it unsafe to be aboard, and another day was lost.

On Monday, October 7, Lourens led a mixed company of crew and fishermen back to the Vrouw Maria, where his worst fears were realized: the rear hold was completely flooded. And there was more. As the ship rolled in the waves on the outside, the seawater sloshed about on the inside, forcibly dislodging the cargo. Broken barrels and floating debris littered the hold.

The crew’s attempts to bail and siphon were frustrated by the discovery that the water had become sweet and sludgy. The ship was carrying forty tons of sugar, which had spilled open, turning the hold into a vast tureen of cold syrupy soup. Two crewmen cranked the bilge pumps to life, and with a whir and a gurgle, water began flowing out of the ship. But the pumps faltered in the sugary muck, and then stopped completely. They were clogged with coffee beans. Hundreds of pounds of coffee beans from torn gunny sacks had become part of the deluge. When the pumps were turned on, the beans were sucked through the filters, and clogged up the cylinders. The bilge system was disabled. There was no saving the ship now.

Lourens redirected his attention to salvaging the cargo. He ordered open the forward hatch. To the captain’s dismay, the inner compartment seals had cracked and the front storage was under more than four feet of water. Taking a few accessible barrels with them, the crew retreated back to the skerry for the night.

The next day, Lourens organized a major salvage operation with thirty-four men. The captain assigned one team the task of stripping the ship bare, collecting and packing up all the sails, rigging, and navigation instruments. These items, Lourens knew, could be quickly resold in nearby Turku, Finland’s main harbor town, earning at least partial compensation for his losses. A second team went to work in the fore hold, removing the crates and barrels nearest to the hatch. And a third team continued the arduous task of bailing and siphoning trying to delay the inevitable.

When the operation got underway in the morning, the sea was calm, but by early afternoon, the wind shifted to the south and whitecaps rocked the hull. Lourens was again forced to curtail activity on the unstable craft. Before departing, it was noticed that the anchor cable was badly frayed from the constant push of wind and surf, and two crewmen cut and retied the mooring line. A small flotilla of rowboats, packed high with gear and goods, careened back to camp through pelting rain and plunging spray.

On Wednesday morning, October 9, Lourens rose early. The storm had passed. The sea was tranquil, lavender, and empty. The captain stared at the horizon for a long time. His ship was nowhere in sight. The men were roused and sent back out in rowboats to search, perhaps the storm had severed the worn anchor line and the vessel was adrift. Meanwhile, a jolly boat commanded by a Swedish customs official arrived on the skerry. Appraising the camp, he inquired about the craft and the cargo. Lourens could only sigh: his ship was missing, its cargo a secret. Before casting off, the officer instructed him that a formal declaration on the wreck must be made to the maritime court in Turku.

Later in the afternoon, the skiffs returned to camp and a crewman reported to the captain. The Vrouw Maria was lost. And with the ship, her priceless cargo. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Why was Gerrit Dou so revered in the 17th and 18th centuries, and then largely forgotten in the 19th century? What was the role of individual critics and scholars, versus changing tastes of the public? Would his legacy be different if his masterwork had survived the shipwreck? Can Dou make a true comeback in the 21st century, considering his very realist style?
2. What makes Dou’s triptych, The Nursery, so special? Does the symbolism of the objects in the painting enhance the quality of the artwork? More broadly, what criteria do we use to judge art and how has this changed over time?

3. One of the recurring themes in The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure is the interplay between politics and art. What are some ways that art and culture influenced politics (and vice versa), particularly during the 18th and 19th centuries? What made a ruler like Catherine or Frederick the Great “enlightened” and what did it mean for the politics of their countries?

4. Why were art critics and others upset when Gerrit Braamcamp’s collection was broken up and sold to buyers across Europe? Why do you think Braamcamp specified that everything should be auctioned to the highest bidder? Do societies have an obligation to protect such things as a part of their national heritage?

5. Why is Rauno so successful as a wreck hunter? How is his strategy for finding the Vrouw Maria different from others who had tried before him?

6. Why does conflict arise between Rauno and the Finnish National Board of Antiquities (NBA) when it seems that they should share the same interests? Was the lawsuit over the Vrouw Maria inevitable, considering the contradictory laws?

7. Considering the many claimants to the Vrouw Maria and her cargo, whose claim do you think has the most legitimacy (logically, not necessarily legally)? Whoever the legitimate claimant is, do they have any obligation to the other parties? What is it — to protect, study, salvage, or otherwise act on the shipwreck? Why is the NBA so resistant to excavating or salvaging the Vrouw Maria, or even exploring the possibility?

8. Why do you think is in situ preservation trending in archeology in general and in marine archeology in particular? What are the challenges that come with raising shipwrecks? What would be the benefits of raising the Vrouw Maria? How could Finland best make use of this resource?

9.The Vrouw Maria is a Dutch ship that had a Danish captain, carrying Dutch and other international cargo to a Russian destination. It happened to sink in Finnish waters. Is this shipwreck part of Finnish heritage? Is this question relevant to the fate of the shipwreck? Should it be?

10. Evidence and art experts suggest it is unlikely that the triptych and the other paintings are in good condition after spending 200-plus years underwater. Does this influence whether they should be investigated and/or excavated? As a society, do we have a moral or cultural obligation to investigate? And if they are destroyed, do they still have some value – monetary or otherwise?

11. Have you ever been to a shipwreck museum? Visited ancient ruins? Admired archeological artifacts in a broken or even unrecognizable state? What is the appeal of such relics that are arguably just detritus? Why are we intrigued by wrecks and ruins?

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