PETER STUYVESCENT and ADRIAEN VAN DER DONCK

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week are rare gems of New York history. A document signed by Peter Stuyvescent in an impressive flourish hangs on the second floor in a non-descript corridor near the elevators.  In the same exhibit is a beautiful Dutch manuscript by Adriaen Van der Donck with one of the earliest known representations of this fair island of Mannahatta. The tiny line drawing is spectacular in its simplicity. A small clump of settlement at the edge of a rock mass. Other jewels include a nineteenth century painting of Trinity Church, a drawing of Federal Hall, a sweeping birds eye view of Manhattan, and a pastoral view from a Breucklyn hilltop. Views up Broadway from the eighteenth century and a spectacular drawing looking downtown towards Trinity Church with farmland all the way down toward the distant steeple of the church make this little corridor a feast for a historian's eyes.