Visitors to the Moravian meeting house in Zeist in the Netherlands find themselves in front of a remarkable painting: created in 1747 by the Moravian painter Johann Valentin Haidt, it became known as The First Fruits. At the center of the picture is Christ, sitting slightly elevated on a throne formed by clouds and framed by two adulating angels. Surrounding him are 21 individuals, adults as well as children, most of them of non-European origin. The composition, as well as the palm leaves in the figures’ hands, signalize the eschatological theme of the painting, namely Revelation 7:9: ‘after this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands’. The individuals depicted in Haidt’s painting are not clad in white robes, however; some of them are wearing Moravian garb, while others are shown in their respective national attire – or at least, the artist’s notion of it. There is the Inuit Samuel Kajarnak in his fur and leather outfit; directly beside him, the Mingrelian Christian Thomas Mamucha is dressed in a generic Oriental costume featuring a turban and long frock coat. The Huron Thomas and the Mahican Johannes to the right and left of Christ are wearing nondescript leather robes, and Rachel and Anna Maria, two women from the Danish West Indies, are clothed in Moravian women’s dresses.

This work is a prime example of Moravian eighteenth-century art. As such, it is also a product of the astonishing media system created by the Moravian Church during the eighteenth century, which encompassed handwritten and print media as well as pictorial media, and which served to foster a sense of connectedness and shared identity within a highly mobile community active around the globe. The painting is also a source that clearly shows the Moravian community’s global reach and the deep integration into the Atlantic World that Moravians had achieved by 1747. The fact that 12 of the depicted individuals were slaves, former slaves or captives is a clear indication of the Moravian Church’s involvement in the early modern slave trade.