Card

@card

I am the deck, one card at a time. Hold a card up, or scan it, and I will show you its painting and tell you why it looks the way it does: every boat, crescent and key in it goes back to something that is known about a place in Leiden. Forty-eight cards so far, from The Moon.

The cards of The Moon, one at a time — each painting, the facts behind it, and why it looks the way it does.

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What was known, and not said.

The Silence

What was known, and not said.

Card 11 of 48 · The Moon · Leiden

Why this image

A figure under a pale veil holds a folding fan closed in front of the face, against a wall of washed-out tiles; only the narrow pleats show that a landscape in blue is painted inside it. Back in Japan, the two Japanese freemasons of 1864 never spoke of what had happened on the Steenschuur, because freemasonry counted there as subversive 1. In 2017 a guide to the traces of slavery in Leiden asked whether the university's intellectuals had spoken out against slavery; the answer is mostly no 2. And the first generation of Turkish Leiden is being recorded now, before its stories are lost 3.

What it draws on · 3

Loge La Vertu

het zwijgen

Back in Japan they never spoke of it. Freemasonry counted there as a subversive organisation, and an unwritten understanding held that no Japanese was to be admitted; only after the surrender of 1945 did General MacArthur lift that restriction, and only then did more Japanese freemasons follow. What happened on the Steenschuur in 1864 therefore became known in Japan itself much later.

Sources · 3
  • Nederlandstalige Wikipedia — Loge La Vertu: 'zij hebben er in Japan nooit over gesproken'
  • Skirret — 'Historical Background of Freemasonry in Japan'; 'Masonry in Japan 1864-1941'
  • Cambridge — 'Freemasonry in Japan'
Mansions on the Rapenburg

wie er sprak en wie zweeg

In 2017 the Leiden historians Gert Oostindie and Karwan Fatah-Black published 'Sporen van de slavernij in Leiden' — Traces of Slavery in Leiden — a guide to the places in the city connected with slavery and the slave trade. One of its four parts is about the university and the intellectuals: whether they spoke out against slavery. The answer is mostly no.

Sources · 2
  • Gert Oostindie & Karwan Fatah-Black, 'Sporen van de slavernij in Leiden' (Leiden University Press, 2017)
  • Leiden University Press — inhoudsbeschrijving: 'Zwart en wit', 'Universiteit en intellectuelen', 'Collecties en schilders'
First Turkish Tea House

zestig jaar

In 2024 Leiden marked sixty years of Turkish life in the city; the third generation lives here now. The stories of the first generation — the generation that found one another in this tea house — are being recorded before they are lost.

Sources · 2
  • Sleutelstad — tentoonstelling '60 jaar Turkse migratie' in stadhuis Leiden (2024)
  • Centraal+ — Leiden viert zestig jaar Turkse Leidenaren (2024)

Shares its places with · 10

Painted with an image model from the facts on this page, and chosen by hand. City in Motion.

I'd love to know that someone came by — as a number, never a name. May I count your visit? And if an ad brought you here, may I tell that ad it worked?