Dirck van Os

Dirck van Os (Antwerp, March 1556 – Amsterdam, May 1615) was an Amsterdam merchant, insurer, financier and shipping magnate. He is among the founders of the Compagnie van Verre, the United East India Company (VOC), and the Amsterdam Exchange Bank.^[1]

Portrait of Dirck van Os as an ensign by Cornelis de Visscher (1583).

A painting by Pieter Saenredam of the old town hall in Amsterdam where Amsterdam Exchange Bank was founded in 1609.

Biography

Van Os was born to a trader in pigments and tapestries, originally from 's-Hertogenbosch, who had moved to Antwerp around 1550.^[2][3]

Dirck served as captain of militia in the Fall of Antwerp, wherein the city surrendered to the Duke of Parma. After this point he moved to Middelburg. In January 1588, Van Os married Margretha van de Piet.^[4] He and his brother Hendrick traded in leather, grain and precious stones, primarily in the Levant and cities on the Baltic Sea.^[5] In 1595, he organized an expedition with Isaac le Maire to get salt in Setúbal and ship it to Archangelsk

In 1602 he was one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company, and served as one of the first directors. (The brothers hired a bookkeeper who moved in.) With 47,000 guilders, they were the largest investors.^[6] This number grew to 120,000 by 1609.^[7] The oldest stock share in the world, dated 27 September 1606, was also signed by him.^[8][9]

The company had an account at the Wisselbank from the beginning. At that time they were involved in the expedition of Henry Hudson to find an alternative route to the East. In 1612 Van Os acquired more than one-seventh of the land in Beemster and in the Purmer^[10]

His portrait is in the Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar.^[11]

Family

His son, Dirck van Os II (1590–1668), served from 1618–1666 as the dijkgraaf of Beemster, and was the subject of a Rembrandt portrait currently owned by Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.^[12]

References

1. Dillen, J.G. van (1958) Het oudste aandeelhoudersregister van de Kamer Amsterdam der Oost-Indische Compagnie, p. 110-111
2. https://biografieportaal.nl/recensie/dirk-van-os-een-brabantse-koopman-in-amsterdam/
3. Alice Boots en Rob Woortman (2023) Een geniale koopman. Dirk van Os en de invloed van Zuid-Nederlanders op de Amsterdamse geldmarkt.
4. Dillen, J.G. van (1958) Het oudste aandeelhoudersregister van de Kamer Amsterdam der Oost-Indische Compagnie, p. 110
5. Gelderblom, Oscar (August 24, 2000). Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden en de opkomst van de Amsterdamse stapelmarkt (1578-1630). Uitgeverij Verloren. ISBN 9065506209 – via Google Books.
6. "Beursplein netwerkdiner 2012 | Toespraak | Rijksoverheid.nl". Archived from the original on 2014-04-08. Retrieved 2014-04-07.
7. "Financieel Erfgoed op de Kaart". www.financieelerfgoedopdekaart.nl.
8. the oldest Share : VOC 1606 / die älteste Aktie der Welt
9. Shorto, Russell (27 September 2013). "The Ghosts of Amsterdam". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 April 2014. But when I'm on the Nes I feel I'm about to run into a tall, handsome, wily man who in his day favored lace collars and a twisty little mustache. His name was Dirck van Os, and, while history has forgotten him, his house on this street (which, alas, no longer exists) could be considered the birthplace of capitalism.
   For four months in 1602, Amsterdammers streamed into his parlor to buy pieces of a new kind of corporation, one that allowed backers to sell their portion at a later date, at a higher (or lower) value. The Dutch East India Company transformed the world, and it made Amsterdam, briefly and improbably, the most powerful city in the world.
   But its biggest contribution to history may be in the fact that in this little alley van Os and his merchant colleagues gave birth to the concept of "shares of stock." A few years later, a little farther down the street, came the first stock exchange. Things would never be the same.
10. "BeemsterBuitenplaatsen PK57". Archived from the original on 2015-05-14. Retrieved 2014-04-07.
11. "Oneindig Noord Holland / Dirck van Oss, stamvader VOC-mentaliteit". Archived from the original on 2014-04-08. Retrieved 2014-04-07.
12. Logan, Casey (April 6, 2014). "Joslyn Finds Rembrandt In Its Attic". The Omaha World-Herald Newspaper, Omaha, Douglas County, NE, USA. pp. 1 & 4A. Only In The World-Herald

External links

• Media related to Dirck van Os at Wikimedia Commons