Anita Steiner

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Jacob sails to China

Anita Steiner, artist and author, born Bergendahl, is from Nol near Gothenburg. She studied at the School for Design and Crafts and the Hovedskou Art School in Gothenburg. Her works are represented at museums, county councils and cultural boards. During the years 1986-1992 Anita Steiner documented the excavations of the East Indiaman Götheborg. The pictures show objects from the excavations. The names of the crew and the stowaways are taken from the logbook of the ship chaplain Holmertz. In 1743 the East Indiaman Götheborg sails from Klippan outside Gothenburg. Three young stowaways have sneaked on board the ship. One of them is Jacob, barely 10 years old. It is Jacobs life and adventures on the ship that Anita Steiner depicts. During the voyage, Jacob sees and experiences exciting foreign lands and places such as Cadiz, Java and Canton, and stormy sailing on the East Indiaman. From a review in 1995 by the Swedish Library Service Agency: The life at sea during very diverse weather conditions, and the visits on land, have been vigorously depicted with a well-balanced realism giving both contrasts and contributions to the more playful and relaxed narrative. This makes the story entertaining at the same time as it convincingly yields insights into the lives of mariners several hundred years ago. It is a good source of knowledge about trade and sailing in the eighteenth century. The finely drawn, warmly coloured illustrations, sometimes with exciting perspectives, are dominant and they interact smoothly with the double-column text, creating a clear and closely detailed language. Some pages at the end show the tools that were needed by a captain, a carpenter and a barber-surgeon, as well as information about the voyage, equipment, purchases and so on.