Willem Goeree became a bookseller due to pressure from his stepfather: initially, he had been interested in the arts and a more academic career. Goeree still found an outlet for his interest in art and religious history through his writing, producing a series of short treatises on drawing and art, beginning with Inleyding tot de algemeene teeken-konst (1668). Later in life he complained that the ridicule of his relatives had prevented him from writing a history of Jewish religion as well, but he did produce an early image of the globe without water as well as a map of Abraham’s travels.

This exhibit contains one map associated with Goeree:

• De Reys-togten van Abraham, gaande uit Ur der Kaldëen na Kanaan (1700)
  (The travel tours of Abraham, going from Ur to Chaldea after Canaan)