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This course examines the visual and material culture of the Dutch Golden Age as the product of global forces. The young Dutch Republic quickly achieved a global reach in the seventeenth century. And Amsterdam served as its commercial capital, which by 1630 could be counted as one of the most important port cities in the world and home to the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the world’s first multinational corporation. Moving an incredible quantity of goods (spices, silks, porcelain, coffee, precious stones, “exotic” arts, and slaves) generated not only the economic riches, but also the cultural touchpoints that would give rise to art produced by the likes of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and the many exceptional craftsmen that have left us some of the most enduring masterpieces of the seventeenth century. This course situates that art, and the city of Amsterdam itself, within networks that connected it to such far flung places as Japan, Jakarta, Surinam, Curacao, Brazil, and the Indian Subcontinent.