07/09/2026
Attention: Australian visitors, guests and other curious museum goers! 🇦🇺 The oldest European object ever found in Australia is in the Rijksmuseum.
After Willem Janszoon became the first European to map a section of Australia in 1606, in 1616, Dutch navigator Dirk Hartog became the first European to land on the shores of Western Australia. Before he and his party left, Dirk erected a wooden post and nailed a pewter kitchen plate to it, with text scratched into it, mentioning the year, the city where the voyage started (Amsterdam) and a couple of other prominent people with him.
81 years later in 1697, Dutch captain de Vlamingh found Hartog’s plate in the sand. He replaced it with a plate of his own and took Hartog’s plate back to the Netherlands. Eventually French explorers found de Vlamingh’s plate and it now is in a museum in Western Australia. And Hartog’s plate is in the Rijks, where you can view it today.
For more fun finds, you can take a private tour of the Rijksmuseum with me. Please visit the private tour page of my website, Amsterdam and You or email me at [email protected]
