The delicacy of one of the first objects in new exhibition at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum belies its brutality. The stark contrast between finery and brutality, wealth and inhumanity is a recurring pattern at the museum’s unflinching exhibition titled, simply, “Slavery,” that examines the history of Dutch involvement in the international slave trade. Here, Tronco, or multiple foot stocks used to to constrain enslaved people, are seen at the Slavery exhibition Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Monday, May 17, 2021. (Image: AP)

The exhibition opens — belatedly and mainly online because of the COVID-19 pandemic — at a time when scrutiny of many nations’ brutal colonial history has been spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement that swept the world last year after the death of Black man George Floyd. School children will be able to visit the museum beginning this week, but the exhibition will not open to the general public until the Dutch lockdown eases further, possibly in June. Here, a machete used for cutting sugar cane is displayed at the Slavery exhibition Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Monday, May 17, 2021. (Image: AP)

A box gifted to Stadholder William IV as the new governor of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) with decorations referring to the WIC's trade in gold, ivory and people, is displayed at the Slavery exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Monday, May 17, 2021. (Image: AP)

Amsterdam had a significant role in the global slave trade — the stately mansions lining its canals attest to the fortunes made by Golden Age traders often with the use of slave labor. That history has led to calls for a formal apology from the current municipality. Curator and head of the history department of the museum, Valika Smeulders is interviewed at the Slavery exhibition Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Monday, May 17, 2021. “We wanted to make the case, that this is a history that speaks to anybody in the Netherlands. It belongs to all of us, so that’s why we chose a personal approach,” she said. (Image: AP)

A branding iron with interwoven letters GWC, used to brand the initials of a Dutch trading company into the skin of its enslaved workers, is displayed at the Slavery exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Monday, May 17, 2021. (Image: AP)

A ceremonial glass commissioned by plantation owners is seen at the Slavery exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Monday, May 17, 2021. (Image: AP)

The installation titled La Bouche du Roi, (The Mouth of the King), by Romuald Hazoume from the perspective of the millions of people deported from the west coast of Africa across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas as commodities, is seen at the Slavery exhibition Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Monday, May 17, 2021. (Image: AP)

A huge cast iron kettle used to process sugar cane is on display at the Slavery exhibition Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Monday, May 17, 2021. (Image: AP)

Oopjen Coppit, right, in a full-length portrait painted in 1664 by Rembrandt van Rijn, is seen at the Slavery exhibition at The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Monday May 17, 2021. Coppit, was the widow of a man whose father owned Amsterdam's largest sugar refinery, processing crops harvested by enslaved men and women in South America. She is the personification of the wealth generated for a privileged few by the vast numbers of enslaved workers, and part of a pair of paintings that also included a depiction of her first husband Marten, left. (Image: AP)

In pics | New Dutch exhibition takes unflinching look at slavery

The stark contrast between finery and brutality, wealth and inhumanity is a recurring pattern at the museum’s unflinching exhibition titled, simply, “Slavery,” that examines the history of Dutch involvement in the international slave trade.