These cubes with cardboard motifs on all six sides can be arranged to form maps of five continents and the world. The latter half of the 19th century experienced globalization in the modern sense, namely a growing degree of interconnection between all regions of the world. This included new means of communication and transportation, plus growing geographical knowledge and interest. As more European scientists travelled throughout the world, their reports spread images and knowledge of different regions. At the same time, geography became an established and professional scientific discipline in Europe’s metropolitan centres, promoting cognition and cartographic representation of the earth. The growth of geographical knowledge, of which this mosaic is a playful example, was key to European colonialism, both as a practical precondition and as an increasing tendency to think in global categories.