Portrait of Willem Anton Engelbrecht

Willem Anton Engelbrecht was born in 1874 in Ceribon, Western Java, where his father served the Dutch government. In 1888 the family returned to Holland and settled in The Hague. After finishing the Royal Military Academy Engelbrecht returned to the Dutch Indies where he battled against local freedom fighters on Atjeh. Not long after that he returned to Holland and started working in the Rotterdam port. As a member of several important boards of several associations directly connected to the port he played a significant role in the development of the port of Rotterdam. Beside that Engelbrecht was an enthousiastic and very competent collector of maritime artefacts, travel journals and maritime maps. In 1950 his complete collection was given on loan to the Rotterdam Maritime Museum. After his death in 1965 the council of Rotterdam was able to purchase his collection. Thanks to Willem Anton Engelbrecht the Maritime Museum now manages one of the most important collections of maps and travel journals. Dimensions of the painting (wxh) are: 30 x 40 cm.