Portrait of Jan Pranger, 1742 (oil on canvas)

Jan Pranger was director-general of the Dutch West India Company on the West African Gold Coast (now Ghana) from 1730 to 1734. He is standing in his office in the Dutch trading post Fort Elmina with his baton and house slave holding a parasol. The monogram GWC (of the Chartered West India Company) decorates the tablecloth. The fortified castle at Elmina (seen through the window) was established as a trade settlement and later became one of the most important stops on the route of the Atlantic slave trade. The Dutch seized the fort from the Portuguese in 1637 and continued the slave trade until 1814