Remember how Daddio and I wrote our first book about a Dutch shipwreck? The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure recounts the story of the Vrouw Maria, a 18th-century merchant ship that was carrying a stash of Dutch masterpiece paintings from Amsterdam to St Petersburg, when a violent squall hit and sank the ship to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. A few weeks ago, a Dutch artist by the name of Mike de Vos reached out to inform us about a television show in the Netherlands called Sunken Masters, which is all about the artworks on board this ship.
TV Star
From what I can tell, Sunken Masters is sort of a cross between a documentary and a reality talent show. Each episode is a master class about one of the artists whose paintings were on board the Vrouw Maria. Here is the episode about Gerrit Dou, the hero of our book. (Of course, it’s in Dutch.)
Art Star
The TV producers invited contemporary artists to create pieces inspired by the relevant Dutch masters from the shipwreck. While doing research for this project, Mike de Vos read our book. And he ended up using it in his artwork!
De Vos’s thing is detailed ink drawings on a canvas of existing documents. He described his latest work:
“I have read the book and used the pages as the base of my artwork. With my BIC-pens I’ve created an artwork on a collection of pages from the book. With this piece, measuring 82.5 cm high and 139.2 cm wide (the same as “The Nursery”), I tried to get as close as possible to the work Gerard Dou made within my own style. It was an incredible experience to draw over your narrative, and I hope it does justice to the significance of the original artwork.”
De Vos provides more details and photos of his process on his website. The final result is this very cool interpretation of Gerrit Dou’s triptych, The Nursery.
Here’s the kicker: De Vos’s piece was the winner of the competition on the show! We are ecstatic that The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure has received some publicity in the Netherlands from this show – and especially that it inspired a new piece of artwork!
De Vos reported: “The hosts and judges were very impressed with both the story in your book and the way it inspired my work. It was wonderful to see how the program highlighted the connection between your book and my artwork.”