ecovering the raphic Tr

Independent Researcher and Consulltant Columbia County, NY

I mages are very powerful. A good example is the com- mon delight most people experienced in the film “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The delight was remarkably heightened for sharp-eyed Hudson Valley Dutch his- torians. Their unanticipated thrill came when Harrison Ford pulled from a shelf of ancient tomes the familiar icon-a large, brass-comer-tipped and clasped, em- bossed leather volume, the Dutch Bible.

Though fleeting, the thrill didn’t stop there. Ford, in the role of Indiana Jones, used this book to discover what the Lost Ark looked like-an act of research eerily reminiscent of one Van Bummell, described by Alexander Hamilton in 1744, who had used the same means to discover what the Tower of Babel looked like-by consulting its illustrations. Among pages of the Book of Genesis, he found an exact depiction of the Ark. And the film’s producer and art director found the source for an elaborate film set, recreating for modern Americans an image that was a Hudson Valley com- monplace two hundred and fifty years ago. In the context of the film, the Bible image had one meaning and pur- pose-find the Ark. But that became skewed for those acquainted with the Hudson Valley commonplace. The image evoked amazement and perhaps shock at seeing a Bible in such a context; it evoked feelings of superior knowledge, in the moment of recognition, over other moviegoers; it evoked wonder and contemplation at how a Dutch Bible wended its way to a Hollywood set. In retrospect, the whole evokes bemusement: who would have expected “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to conjure solemn reflections. Images, lie the Lost Ark itself, become icons, symbols, and emblems filled with many ideas and networks of meaning.

Dutch graphic representations were grounded in such associations. What is now regarded as the earliest known European painting of the New World is Dutch and, like “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” contains surprising, unex- pected symbolism. Jan Mostaert (1475-1555/6) of Haar- lem painted West Indies landscape about 1542 and Care1 van Mander first described it in 1604. The painting

depicts an imaginary landscape peopled with curiously European-like Indians, and was probably based on a description of Coronado’s exploits in what is now the southwestern United States. It shows Indians acting in defense of themselves against Spanish conquest. Its theme-innocent, pastoral life corrupted by depraved civilization-proved to be as prophetic of American experience as it was readily recognized in the Low Countries where the Spanish then ruled.* Though a European product far removed from the arts of the colonial Dutch, the painting focuses our attention on the purposeful and effective graphic representations familiar to the Dutch in both Europe and America.

During the seventeenth century, graphic arts touched all parts of Dutch society and economy. Painted and printed pictures were usually familiar scenes and objects or depictions of historical, heroic, mythological, or bibli- cal subjects. All of these images had a prominent place in daily life where the Dutch drew instruction and mean- ing from such illustrations. In addition, engravings, maps, and tiles were ornamented with graphic repre- sentations, and illustrated books enjoyed an enormous popularity.

In particular, books of topical verse sought to explain religious, biblical, and social issues. The verses were elaborated in accompanying illustrations that depicted the dramatic action and moral of the verse. Such pictorial and verbal instructions also enjoyed prevalence throughout Europe and in England where they were known as “emblems.” Emblematic verse had to be read for the accompanying illustration to be comprehensible; but once the verse was read and the illustration under- stood, the illustration alone became an emblem (or sym- bol) for the written idea. Our understanding of the association of graphic and verbal depiction is further enriched by the multiple meanings of the Dutch word verklaaren: “to illustrate”, and “to declare, explain, in- terpret.” Thus despite the Dutch abundance of book publishers and sellers and the prevalence of literacy, images remained potent symbols for conveying informa-

23

24 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

tion and ideas in the Netherlands. Not limited to illustrated books, emblematic images were adapted by painters to give layered meanings to their paintings.

The English diarist John Evelyn was amazed by these pictures-“especially landscapes and drolleries”-that he found for sale at the Rotterdam kermis. He also noted ornamental representations adorning houses, churches, and furniture. Evelyn explained that

‘. . . . the reason for this store of pictures, and their cheapness, proceeds for their want of land to employ their stock, so that it is an ordinary thing to find a common farmer lay out two or three thousand pounds in this commodity. Their houses are $ll of them, and they vend them at their fairs to very great gains.”

In the seventeenth century, more than three thousand documented artists? found this demand irresistible, and only a handful of them travelled to far-flung Dutch outposts established by the Dutch East and West India Companies. Among the latter were six who came to the western hemisphere under the patronage of Count Johann Maurits, first governor of Brazil. During his administration (1637-44), he established scientists, craftsmen, scholars, and these six professional painters to study and record the exotic country. Paintings and

drawings by Albert E&out (ca. 161~after 1664) and Frans Jansz. Post (ca. 1612-1680), ishowing the landscape, vegetation, fruits, animal life, and native peoples, constitute the major Oeuvre of Dutch artists in the New World. The paintings were brought to the Netherlands when Count Maurits returned.4 Official Dutch interest in the arts in the Americas thus ceased.

No graphic recording of North American flora, fauna, or landscape had ever been commissioned by the Dutch West India Company or its local officials. However, several early Dutch mapmakers illustrated their maps with representations of Indians, animals, vegetation, im- ages of New Amsterdam, and beavers were incorporated into civic coats-of-arms. Two early drawings by un- known delineators show New Amsterdam’s appearance, and were adapted by engravers to ornament their maps of New Netherland. The ca. 1650 view, first published by N. J. Vissche2 in 1651-55, was used to illustrate Adriaen van der Donck’s Description 4 The New Netherlands which also included a depiction of North American fauna that more resembled creatures from medieval bestiaries.6 Jan Mostaert’s auspicious begin- ning in the sixteenth century seemed to dwindle as Dutch contact with New World expanded in the 1’7th century.

Fig. 3. Depiction of North American Fauna, from Adrian van der Donck’s Description of the New Netherlands. Courtesy of Manuscripts and Special Collections, New York State Lrbrary, Albany.

THE DUTCH GRAPflIC TRADITION IN THE HUDSON VALLEY 25

Nonetheless, traditionally important attitudes and ex- pectations pertaining to graphic art were transplanted to America, and, taking root in a provincial situation, became greatly modified and eventually reshaped by some unexpected influences. Today only a handful of surviving examples provide concrete information about seventeenth century graphic production in New Nether- land. The surviving artifacts are significandy dominated by iconographic images, leading to the impression that graphic arts in New Netherland quietly emerged in relationship to some predisposition or need for emblematic content and in proportion to craftsmen avail- able. Manuscript evidence enlarges this picture. Several examples are worth considering.

A portrait of Cornelis Steenwyck (ca. 1668) is ornamented with iconography pertinent to this man’s life. Arriving in New Amsterdam in 1651, Steenwyck rose to prominence in trade and civic offices. His portrait is dominated by the Steenwyck coat of arms at the center top and under the bust-length figure a representation of New Amsterdam, taken from the ca. 1650 view of the town shortly thereafter published by Visscher.7

Heraldic devices held significance for New Nether- landers. As early as the 1630~~ coats-of-arms for New Netherland and New Amsterdam were planned.” Their most notable device, the beaver, aptly reflected the West India Company’s North American trading purposes. Some individuals brought with them from Europe their family’s coats-of-arms. Apparently some devices were adopted here after a family gained colonial prominence. After the English takeover in 1664, interest in such devices seems to have increased during the colonial period, and was renewed by descendants in the nineteenth century. Arms were employed in notably public fashion: at Albany (1656 and after) and Kingston (1679), the Dutch churches were furnished with glass decorated by Evert Duyckinck (ca. %620/l-by 1702/3), a glazier who immigrated to Netherland by 1640.’ The church windows were commissioned and paid for by prominent individuals whose family coats-of-arms adorned the glass, while canvas hatchments bearing painted arms of even more families hung in the churches and were carried at funerals, following customs of the Netherlands. Their prominent display conferred status and compelled recognition of the more prosperous members of the community. In the eighteenth century, coats-of-arms came to be a frequent decoration (and declaration of ownership) on silver pieces.

An example of seventeenth century silver work-a presentation beaker that descended in the Sanders family of Scotia, New York-shows bsw the emblematic verklaaring elucidated values and information. The

was ornamented with adaptations of emblems ti in Spiegel watt den. Olden ende Nieuwen Tgdt,

(1632).” The §@ege1 (Mirror) was a witty, moralistic, and sometimes satiric book by Jacob Cats. His use of folk wisdom combined with classical and IBiblical authorities made him widely popular and the most beloved poet of the seventeenth century. Editions of his poems were well illustrated with humorous and sometimes cryptic engrav- ings that became symbols for the subject of the verses. Thus the images of stork, geese, and eagle with tortoise incised on the beaker communicate ideas. The tortoise, momentarily riding high over craggy mountains in the claws of an eagle, will fall in the end. Cats provided the English gloss, “The highest tree hath the greatest fall.” Cats’ geese represent industry, for by labor are fortunes made. The image of the stork tells the story of a more complex illustration: armed soldiers pursuing farmers, who chase a dragon-like crocodile, which is about to eat a snake which is attacking a stork which eats a lizard which is eating a spider whose web has ensnared insects. To complete a cycle, it is likely the insects are plaguing the soldiers. Cats provided a gloss from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 5:8,

If you witness in some province the oppression of the poor, do not be surprised at what goes on, for every official has a hi her one set over him and the highest keeps watch over them all. lf

One can hardly ignore the verse that follows in the Bible. “The best thing for a country is a king whose own lands are well tilled,” which fortifies the wry sacial and political observation certainly applicable to New York colonial administration in 1685, the year the beaker was made by Comelis van den Butch [Burgh].

These diverse examples, however, do not answer for paintings or other delineated art. Evidence of seven- teenth century painters in New Netherland is minimal. Portraits of importance are Ehose of Petrus Stuyvesant (1611-1672) and his son, William Nicholas Stuyvesant (B64CB698). Based om a itbw iim which a woman stated that her husband p amd his two sons in order 8663, that mam, Hemri Couturier, is most likely to have beem tie painter who made these portraits. Despite the 1666 inscription on the surviving portrait of William Nicholas Stuyvesant rAetatis Sua I7 Ano I666”)-an inscription now attributed to Nehemiah Partridge-the

Fig. 4. Silver presentation beaker, 1685, by Cornelius van der Burch. From the Mable Brady Garvan Collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.

THE DUTCH GRAPHIC TRADITION IN THE HUDSON VALLEY 27

attractive theory that Hem-i Couturier painted these portraits is plausible because Couturier is the only schilder known to have lived in New Netherland/New York (ca. 1661-74) at that time and because of the realistic possibility that more than one portrait of these subjects might have been made. Couturier must be noted as the colony’s first “artist” of record, even though knowledge of his work is very sparse.12

During this period, we know that a variety of art came to the colony from Europe. “Paperpictures” (engravings) are mentioned in a few inventories of the 1650s. Several slightly later inventories reveal that rich colonists had an

array of paintings. One of these was Margarita van Varick (wife of Domine Rudolphus van Varick) whose stunning collection of paintings (including portraits) and works of art on paper must have been assembled during her first marriage to a prosperous Dutch East India Com- pany administrator. ’ 3 But colonial circumstances did not always leave room for these amenities. Jeremias van Rensselaer, who came to America in 1654, never men- tioned works of art until about two months before his death in 1674, when he wrote to his brother, Jan Baptist, about the settlement of his mother’s estate in the Nether- lands:

I wish that opposite each article had been indicated the price at which it was appraised, as I could then order some paintings to be sent over. The household linen you will please slyd to us, as we need that to replenish the linen closet somewhat.

Other painters, however, are encountered in colony records as ship passengers and then in the listing of the Small Burgher Right. The register for the Small Burgher Right was begun April 10,1657, and only three days later Jan Dirckzsen, painter, and Evert Duyckinck (a “glazier” of special interest, as we will scebelow) took the required oath and paid 18 stivers to retain certain privileges of city residency. In May 1659, another painter, Jacob Hendricksen Haen, was listed.15 Since they are not denoted as “limners,” it is likely that these men were not of a primarily artistic bent but rather skilled in preparing and applying pigments in oil for practical and perhaps decorative purposes.

By the late seventeenth century we seem to reach a hiatus in the development of painting in the former Dutch colony. Several kinds of artisans created graphic emblematic images, while painters were known only for craft skills until about 1700 and lone Hemi Couturier for only three documented portraits. Nonetheless, the early eighteenth century portraiture was established in New

York, although too few portraits are identified with certainty as to subject and date to speculate about how extensive portraiture may have been in this period. A handful known from surviving examples and mention of additional ones in inventories enable us to consider graphic arts in this period.

One of the inventories seems especially significant. It is that of John Abeel (ca. 1669-171 l/2) who had in his Albany house in 17ll“ll painted pictures, 22 little do., and a painted picture of Mr. Abeel and of Mrs. Abeel and of the daughter.“16 Which of his young daughters, Catalina (b. 1698), Neeltje (b. 1701), or Jannetje (b. 1703), is not stated. But clearly here is indicated a group of family portraits like those associated with more numerous surviving examples of the 1718-50 period. None of these paintings are known today. However, within the family network revealed by Abeel’s inventory are found limners, portrait subjects, and evidence of the ease with which family alliances betwween New York and Albany were established.

Abeel’s executors-his wife Catalina (Schuyler) Abeel, his brother-in-law limner Gerrit Duyckinck (166O-ca. 1712), and another brother-in-law Myndert Schuyler-appointed kinsmen and trusted friends to ap- praise household property at Albany and some silver- ware and a supply of linen kept in the New York house of Gerrit or Evert Duyckinck. These appraisers were Hendrick Hansen, Pieter van Brugh, and Evert Duyck- inck (1677-ca 1726), the latter a limner and the third of that name, a grandson of Evert the glazier and nephew of the above mentioned Gerrit, who was the spouse of Johannes Abeel’s sister, Maria (ca. 1666-1738). Johan- nes Abeel served as baptismal sponsor for two of his sister’s children, including Gerardus Duyckinck (1695- 1746), a limner in the next generation. Adding to this density in the subsequent generation was the 1726 mar- riage of Gerrit and Maria (Abeel) Duyckinck’s daughter, Maria (1702- ? ). to her first cousin David (1705- ?), youngest son Johannes and Catalina (Schuyler) Abeel.17

Three generations of the Duyckinck family emerge from records and from a group of paintings long tradi- tionally attributed to them as New York’s leading lim- ners. There is even elusive documentation that the first Eve& the glazier, was a limner in later life. And in the fourth generation, Gerardus Duyckinck (1723-1797), the eldest son of Gerardus and his wife Johanna van Brugh, continued the family involvement in graphic arts. Al- though he was entered as a limner in the New York City

28 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCKSEMINAR PAPERS

freeman register in 1748 and advertised that he taught drawing, would take portraits, and carried on his father’s well-stocked art and glass supply shop at the “sign of the Cupid,” no works are attributed to him. Art historians now believe that he probably did not produce many paintings.”

While the Oeuvre of this important family was long loosely defined, the 1976 discovery by Richard H. Love of a scripture history painting signed “Gerardus Duyck- inck/1713”t9 has resulted in some firmer attributions and new conclusions. Art historian Mary Black has pointed out that certain brown, blue, and vermillion pigments and a distinctive tulipwood panel are characteristics common over at least two generations of many paintings attributed to the Duyckinck family. In fact, the recurrence of these pigments and panels suggest a family atelier in the Dock Ward of New York, where Evert and Gerrit lived next door to each other for a number of years. An unusually high quantity of glass fragments was found in the Duyck- inck cellar by archeologists in their excavation of the property at Hanover Square in 198 1 .20 The discovery of the signed scripture painting now enables art historians to distinguish stylistic elements in the works of Ever-t Duyckinck (1677-1727) and his cousin Gemrdus (1695- 1746) and to attribute the important portrait of Mrs. Elsje Rutgers Schuyler Vas, by long tradition ascribed to the hand of Hudson Valley portraitist, Pieter Vanderlyn, to Gerardus Duyckinck. This woman was the step mother- in-law of Pieter Vanderlyn and this family association supported the statement of Pieter’s grandson, artist John Vanderlyn that he portrait had been made by his grandfather. However, Mrs. Vas had been married first to David Schuyler (1669-17 15) and was thereforeaclose kinswoman to the Abe&Duyckinck family. All three of her sons, David Jr, Hermanus, and Myndert Schuyler, appear to have engaged in the painter’s business and were entered in the freeman’s register as painters (which probably means only that they made paints) and retained associations with the Duyckinck family.

Gerardus Duyckinck’s scripture history painting, made when he was eighteen years old, has importance in its own right. It is the only signed colonial New York painting. The import of its subject matter is not perfectly clear, but offers an opportunity to demonstrate use of iconographic detail. Based upon the personnae depicted-notably an elderly father and a new, young mother in childbed and the company of female friends caring for an infant-and the subsequent discovery of a colonial Latin American painting with the same

composition entitled The Birth of the Virgin, Richard Love identified this painting as the same subject. However, specific details-mission of bathing the newborn infant and the inclusion of the”father” who had no role in Mary’s Immaculate Conception-that run counter to fixed European depictions of this subject, the strong anti-Catholic position of the Dutch, along with their occasional predilection for the name Jan-Baptist led Piwonka and Blackbum to identify the subject depicted as The Naming of John the Baptist.2’ They could not account, however, for the omission of the writing tablet on which aging Zachariah wrote “His name is John,” an important detail common to European representations of that subject. These arguments are somewhat trivialized by the omission of critical iconographic detail in some other early New York scripture history paintings (such as the failure to depict the furry skins put on Jacob’s hands, so blind father would believe he was touching the hairy Esau).22 Lutherans and perhaps former Catholics at Albany did have an interest in Marianism, but it took the form of quarrelsome opposition, based on the content of the Bible, to Lutheran minister Domine Bemardus Arenzius’ teaching that Mary had died a virgin.23

The religious narrative of this painting directs us back to emblematic depiction and to the observation that the work of the Duyckinck family constituted the continuity of verklaaring in the province. Although requisite iconographic detail is mishandled in some of the paint- ings, all of the paintings, save the curious example above, can be readily identified (sometimes because the Biblical reference is inscribed) with subjects in the Bible, and most are close adaptations of engraved illustrations that occur in the illustrated Dutch Bibles and other illustrated books prevalent in America between 1698 and about 1755. One of these paintings, now attributed to Gerardus Duyckinck, is virtually an iconographic study. The depiction of The Four Evangelists includes not only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John but their respective emblems-a winged man, a winged lion, a winged ox, and an eagle. Although details of the figures and animals derive from printed sources, no specific source for this composition has been found in the Bible or in other printed illustrations.

More than thirty-five scripture history paintings from the first half of the eighteenth century smvive. Most of them originated in the upper Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, a region where contemporary sojourners noted their great popuhuity.24 The Dutch were well acquainted with Bible stories and perpetuated this knowledge with

THE DUTCH GRAPHIC TRADITION Ii’d THE HUDSON VALLEY 29

Bible instruction for their children. Dutch Bible illustra- tions and numerous religious subjects depicted on hearth tiles reinforced the instruction. The Old World habit of equating their own personal provincial histories and destinies with events narrated in the Bible remained in tact well past the middle of the eighteenth century.25

Besides serving as emblematic teachers of Bible history, the scripture paintings also reinforced experience and aspirations. While one extant New York scripture painting, The Crowning of Jeroboam, is a highly political comment,26 the remainder illustrate occasionally religious experience and most often episodes and experience of family life. Birth, nurturing, generational and sibling conflict, hospitality, com- radeship, feasting, and domestic peace were concerns commonly shared in frontier and provincial communities.

Portraits dating from the long and peaceful period between the French and Indian wars (1713-1744) dominated eighteenth century New York colonial art. The greatest proportion of surviving examples come from the upper Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, although we cannot conclude that these examples are an accurate reflection of the proportions of portraits originally made for patrons in New York, Albany, and the great rural river valleys. Most of the subjects can be identified as members of local patriciates. These individuals, of the second and third generation in Albany county, had achieved a degree of economic stability and become contributors to local civic life. Only a handful of portrait subjects are of the proportionately smaller upper class that lived in the region. Some surviving examples show that entire families were portrayed as individuals on separate canvases. Because of some documentary evidenceand the many child portraits, it is concluded that this custom of recording likenesses of the whole family was probably more prevalent than surviving paintings show.27

Certainly peace in the colonies contributed to the impressive quantity of art produced in the Hudson Valley between 1718 and about 1744. But this was not the only factor. Wartime and New York political turbulence of the preceding decades may have paved the way for new painters in the colony. The few Albany portraits attributable to the Duyckincks are surprising, especially when their strong family and long business associations in the Albany area are considered. Although it is conjec- tural, the Duyckinck’s close Leislerian ties in the 1690s

may have roused Albanians to boycott their work. It is otherwise difficult to account for the short-fall of Albany subjects by the Duyckinck family painters. With growing population, an established society, and a stabilized economy for the first time since settlement, colonists were in a position to expand their cultural horizons. A combination of available painters and eager patrons was equally important. While retaining some iconographic elements related to emblems, New York patrons turned to artisans of British background. The first of these was John Watson, a Scats immigrant and accomplished painter who settled in New Jersey in 1714.28 Most of his subjects appear to have been from the lower Hudson region, and his Albany subjects were from the city’s most prominent families.

It was Nehemiah Partridge (1683-by 1737), a New England-born limner and artificer who migrated from Boston to New York city by January 1717F9 who found the most receptive patronage in old Albany county. His identity has only recently been ascertained by Mary Black, who has found that he is likely to have had contacts with Albanians long before 1718, when he apparently first went to the town, for members of his prominent New Portsmouth family were among New Englanders who had worked with Albanians during the French and Indian wars. During 1718-1721 and about 1724-1725, Partridge limned images of more than fifty Albany subjects. Their direct, honestly depicted heads are often set in a somewhat pretentious, English-- influenced atmosphere copied from current, fashionable mezzotints. Frequently aLatin inscription, giving the age of the subject and the year the portrait was made, appears on the paintings, causing twentieth century art historians to have called Partridge the Aetatis Sue Limner.30

This former “title” of the previously anonymous limner focuses on an important iconographic detail. Aetatis sue inscriptions on portraits, a northern European and English custom that began in the fifteenth century, are closely related to the historic emergence of both individuals and the modem family, for recognition of an individual’s age was an important factor in placing that individual in society. By the middle of the seventeenth century this custom of inscribing portraits was un- fashionable, unsophisticated, and considered in town and court as “naive and provincialyy3’ Its late appearance among the colonial Dutch-first with William Nicholas Stuyvesant’s 1666 portrait, and then on numerous Albany portraits in the first and second quarters of the eighteenth century-is historically consistent with

30 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCKSEMINARPAPERS

patterns of family formation and the emergence of town society, and is symptomatic of a provincial self-concep- tion. Related to this development is the fact that the Albany community, which had maintained no records of marriages and births, responded energetically when the English (who by this time had established their own national procedures) required this in 1683. This ritual of family life found expression not only in church ceremony and records but also in individual family histories kept in Bibles or ledgers. After Partridge’s sojourns at Al- bany, the Aetatis Sue formula diminished in use, al- though a number of examples by Pieter Vanderlyn and by John Heaten are found on portraits of the 1730s and early 1740s. These two limners added substantially to the quantity of upper Hudson Valley portraits and in a number of their works, emblematic or other symbolic iconography was used.

Pieter Vanderlyn (ca. 1687-1778) was a Dutch-born painter who settled in New York about 1718 after a period in Dutch-occupied CuraGao. Because of the prominence of his grandson, John Vanderlyn, he is a colonial limner whose name was never lost and came to be associated with too many portraits in styles too diverse to be credited to one hand.32 In his work, several examples of emblem-like details are found. The best example are the paired portraits of Leendert Gansevoort (1683-1763)andhiswifeCatarinadeWandelaer(1689- 1767). The couple’s surname, Gansevoort, means “goose-fort,” a fact handsomely illustrated by a goose pond embellishing Leendert’s portrait and a castle fortification in Catarina’s portrait.

Another kind of symbolism frequently employed by Vanderlyn was inclusion of floral and bird images in portraits of children and young people. Roses and gillyflowers, most commonly held by young females, were traditionally symbolic of pure love, love about to happen, romantic love, and so on, according to their color and the position in which they are held. Similar devices are seen in portraits by Partridge, where they seem to follow the influence of English mezzotints rather than contain symbolic content. Even in Vanderlyn’s paint- ings, their ornamental effect is indisputable. However, a particular feature of one portrait causes us to reconsider their possible significance. The portrait is of Magdalena Veeder, whose left hand holds low on the canvas a full-blown rose and whose raised right hand holds buds in the air; falling behind the painted spandrel, at the bottom of the portrait, in almost trompe d’oeille manner, are an open rose, a peach, and a cherry. Our lack of

specific knowledge of floral and fruit symbolism obscures any story that this interesting and remarkable configuration of elements may have told.

Despite Vanderlyn’s Dutch origin’s, there is little in his painting that derives from the rich, sophisticated seventeenth century portraiture of the Netherlands. Besides the rebus and floral devices, he also used in some portraits archaic elements of sixteenth century English and other northern European portraiture.33 In this Mannerist-influenced tradition, stiff ritualized figures are garbed in highly ornamental costumes, and their person or background detail (whether landscape or mere- ly undefined) are further characterized with personally identifying, specific iconographic detail, such as a build- ing, an object, jewelry, a pet, written inscription, etc. Such portraits-especially those of female subjects-are extremely decorative but also are illustrated statements (like verklaaring) giving definition to individuals. Two examples of this tradition in Vanderlyn’s work are portraits of Debora Glen (1721-1786) and Susanna Truax (17261805). This kind of portraiture was not the currently fashionable type disseminated by imported mezzotints. What example or circumstance existed that influenced Vanderlyn or called this tradition to the atten- tion of Albany/ Schenectady area patrons is now unknown. However, the appeal of these highly iconographic depictions conforms with the graphic orientation of the provincial Dutch community.

The Wendell limner, named for his depiction of more Wendell family subjects in the 173Os, is another painter who worked in Albany and whose portraits sometimes incorporate this archaic tradition. He is likely John Heaten, also named in the informative Wendell account book. Evert Wendells’s son, Abraham, wrote in 1737 in the same ledger that contained the information about Nehemiah Partridge, that he had sent Heaten seven frames and speckled linen for the seven portraits he had ordered.34 More information is needed about the identity of John Heaten, assuredly of British and possibly of New England origin, who appears first in Albany records in 1730 when he married Maria Hoogekerk (b. 1698). Over the following decade, he bought property and raised his family of four children in Albany, but in the early 1740s mention of him in public records ceases. His portrait of Abraham Wendell with the family mill in the. background also employs a specific local icon.

The quantity of surviving portraits from the first half of the eighteenth century greatly exceeds the scripture

THE DUTCH GRAPHIC TRADITION IN THE HUDSON VALLEY 31

paintings. It is supposed that this is so because later generations identified with their ancestors and cared to preserve their images, while the once important scripture paintings appeared crude, unfashionable, and no longer communicated meaningful ideas.

If an emblematic response operated at all in later generations, it must have reacted to the portraits’ strong individualism and their ability to communicate a familial continuity, inspiring pride and probably veneration. Janet Montgomery, reminiscing about her ancestry in 1820, recalled the great portrait by Nehemiah Partridge of Pieter Schuyler, who maintained such good relations with northern Indians and took four of them to the English court in 1710. In turn the Indians remembered Schuyler:

His memory is still cherished. and even in my youth [ca. 1764 I have seen numbers crowd to see a full-length portrait of him. The moment they approached it they fell on their knees, calling out “Quidor! Quidor!” never being able to pronounce his name.35

Numerous paintings from Albany County during the first half of the eighteenth century were dominated by English influences and elements, but also retained an important Dutch characteristic. Along with fulfilling impulses and needs for self-perpetuation and decoration, paintings made for the Hudson Valley Dutch were consistent with the tradition of graphic literacy and the direct and emblematic illustration that the Dutch had brought to America in the seventeenth century. Verklaaren-illustration and statement-instructs us even today. Just ask Indiana Jones!

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Notes

‘Hugh Honour, The European Vision of America

1 Cleveland: The Cleveland Art Museum, 1976), 30-32. John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn (London: Dent,

1966) 21-22. 3Walther Bemdt, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century (New York: Phaidon, 1969), vol. 1, iv. 4Honour, 99-107. 51. N. Phelps Stokes and Daniel C. Haskell, American Historical Prints. Earl Views of American Cities. Etc. From the Phelps Stokes ana’ other Collections (New York: The New York Public Library, 1932), Plates 4,5, 6 and 7; p. 9-l 1. 6Adriaen van der Donck, A Description of New Nether- lands. Jeremiah Johnson, tr., and Thomas F. O’Donell, ed. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1968), fron- tispiece and opp. iv of the translator’s introduction. 7The New-York Historical Society, Catalogue of American Portraits in The New-York Historical Society. 2 ~01s. (New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1974), 2: 757. Family tradition has ascribed the portrait to Steenwyck’s brother-in-law Jan van Gootten and it is said to have been painted in the Netherlands when Steen- wyck visited there in 1667-68; however, no information on the artist van Gooten has come to light, and attribution to Henri Couturier can be considered. *Richard Koke, American Landscape and Painting in The New-York Historical Society. A Catalogue of the Collection. Including Historical. Narrative. and Marine Art. 3 ~01s. (New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1982), 3: 354-55. ‘Waldron Phoenix Belknap, American Colonial Paint- ing. Materials for a History (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1959), 63-75, provides detailed information on the first Evert Duyckinck drawn from contemporary records. See also Robert W. G. Vail, “Storied Window Richly Dight” (New-York Historical Society Quarterly. 1952) 36: 148-59. “Anna W. McNeil, “A Pedigreed American Beaker” (The Magazine Antiques. May 1929) 15: 388-90 and Mrs. Russell Hastings, “The Sanders-Garvan beaker by Cornelis VanderBurch” (The Magazine Antiques, February 1935) 27: 52-55. “Jacob Cats, Spiegel van den Ouden ende Nieuwen Tijdt, (1632. Reprint. Amsterdam: Facsimile Uitgaven Nederland N. V., 1968) Part 2: 19-20, Part 3: 21-22 and 27-28. ’ %‘here has been some confusion over S tuy vesa t’s birth year due to the fact that his tombstone in St. IJ ark’s in

the Bowery states he died in 1672 at age 80. This implies 1592 as the year of his birth, and this date is used by some 19th and early 20th century historians (see Alma R. van Hoevenberg, “The Stuyvesants in the Netherlands and New Netherland,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin, x/l (April 1926): 3-;!7). However, more recent research in Netherlands archives have turned up proof that he was born in 1611 in Peperga near Scherpenzeel in the province of Friesland. See J.H.P. Kemperink, “Pieter Stuyvesant: Waar en wanneer werd hij geboren?” De Navorscher-Nederlands Archief XCVIII (1959): 49-59. The New Netherland Project has recently discovered confirmation of the 1611 date in the Amsterdam Notarial Records No. 1293/8 of Jan. 18, 1646, which gives Petrus Stuyvesant’s age as of that date as about 35 years.

Information on Couturier comes from The New-York Historical Society, Catalogue of American Portraits, 780 and 782-83. See also John Hill Morgan, Early American Painters. Illustrated in the Collections of The New-York Historical Society (New York, 1926), p. 21; and Charles X. Harris, “Henri Couturier: An Artist of New Netherland,” The New-York Historical Society Quarterly 11 (July, 1927): 45-52; and James Thomas Flexner, First Flowers of Our Wilderness (New York: Dover Publications, 1968), 57 and 289-90. Couturier has also been suggested as the painter of the portrait of Comelis Steenwyck, mentioned earlier in this paper. 131nventory of Margritavan Varick, 13 Jan 1696/7, New York State Archives, Albany. Another example in the same collection is that of Christina Cappoens, 5 Jan 1693/4. “Pictures” and their frames are mentioned in numerous other inventories, but very few others name subject matter. 14A.J.F. van Laer, tr. and ed., Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer 1651-167’4 (Albany: The University of the StateofNew York, 1932), 472. “The New-York Historical Society, [Burghers and Freemen] Collections of the New-York Historical Societyfor the Year I885 (New York, 1886), 17,21, and 25. *&‘A True Inventory of Goods of the person Estate of Mr. John Abeel late of the City of Albany. . .7th April 1712”

P ew York State Archives, Albany).

7Belknap, American Colonial Painting, U-85,107-9, 126, and 134-36; and Jonathan Pearson, Contributions for the Genealogies of the First Settlers of the Ancient CountyofAlbanyfrom 1630 to 1800 (Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1976), 13. This some-

THE DUTCH GRAPHIC TRADITION IN THE HUDSON VALLEY 33

what labored genealogical knot is typical of relationships encountered when studying groups of portraits, the kind of graphic image most prevalent between about 17 18 and 1750. Although not all subjects are so closely related to a painter, even baptismal sponsorship may prove the key in establishing that the artist and the subject actually knew each other. Beyond this, substantial genealogical investigation is often required to confirm a portrait subject’s identity and the descentof an inherited portrait. “Belknap, American Colonial Painting, 120-23; and Wayne Craven, “Painting in New York City,” American Painting to 1776. Reappraisal (Winterthur Conference Report 1971), ed. Ian M. G. Quimby (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1971), 252; 254-56. ‘?Richard H. Love, “ An Important Rediscovery: The Birth of the Virgin by Garardus Duyckinck I (1695- 1746)” (Art News, November 1976) 75: 110-l 1. 2uNan Rothschild, personal communication to author. 21Ruth Piwonka and Roderic H. Blackburn. A remnant in the Wilderness: New York Dutch Scripture Hisrory Paintings of the Early Eighteenth Century (Albany and Annandale, New York: Albany Institute of History and Art for the Bard College Center, 1980), 22. 22Piwonka and Blackburn, ibid., 4547. 23A.J.F. van Laer, Court Minutes of Albany, Rensselaerswyck, and Schenectady (Albany, The Uni- versity of the State of New York, 1932) 3: 195-98. 2%wonka and Blackburn, A remnant in the Wilderness, 12, 25Albert Blankert et al, Gods, Saints, and Heroes. Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt (Washington, Detroit, and Amsterdam: National Gallery of Art, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Rijksmusem, 1980) is a scholarly exhibition catalogue with several essays devoted to the importance of religious, mythological and heroic paint- ing in the Netherlands. While treating nothing like the colonial New York paintings, the didactic, moralistic function of seventeenth century Dutch examples is well established. The custom of copying from printed sources is clearly demonstrated by Adriaen van Gaesbeeck’s A Painter in his Studio, formerly at Chatsworth, Devon- shire, now unlocated, but illustrated in Walther Berndt, 1: 402. 26Christine Skeeles Schloss, “The Dutch Prototype for The Crowning of Jeroboam: Politics and the Scriptures,” in Piwonka and Blackbum, A remnant in the Wilderness, 69-70, discusses possible relationships between the theme of “a successful traitor crowned” and the usurpa- tion of the Dutch territory by the English. The Leisler rebellion, church debates over pietism and over American ordination (Jeroboam had established places of worship in the wilderness for the ten unfaithful tribes of Israel), or some other now unidentified issue. The painting is closely adapted from an illustrated book by Nicholas Visscher (1659, 1700, and 1734 editions) of

glosses and emblematic interpretation of Biblical his- tory. “The Thomas van Alstyne family portraits are a good example of this. His will (NYHS Will Abstracts) men- tions only that his three sons would have their own respective portraits. The will indicates that his two daughters would divide household property. The portraits of the three sons are today unknown, and three portraits not mentioned in the will are in museum collec- tion+Thomas and his wife at New-York Historical Society, and daughter Catharine at Albany Institute of History and Art. 28Mary Black, “Tracking Down John Watson”

19 American Arts & Antiques, October, 1979), 78-85. New-York Historical Society Collections 1909: Inden-

ture of Apprentices 1718-1727,122. 3%Iary Black, “Co ntributions toward a History of Early Eighteenth-Century New York Portraiture: Identifica- tion of the Aetatis Suae and Wendell Limners.” American Art Yournal 12, (Autumn, 1980): 4-31. Documentary information about Partridge had been known for some time. Mrs. Black has added to that information significant biographical data about Partridge and in particular has positively associated the man with his work through her discovery of a 1718 entry in a Wendell family account ledger that describedPartridge’s “debt” of four portraits and some cash to Evert Wendell in exchange for a horse. Three of those dated portraits are today in the Albany Institute of History and Art collections. 3 ‘Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood. A Social His- tory of Family Life, Robert Baldick, tr. (New York VintageBooks,Random House, 1962), 15-18;andKeith Wrightson, English Society 1580-1680 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1982), Chs. 3 and 4. 32Charles %. Harris, “Pieter Vanderlyn, Portrait Painter” (Mew-York Historical Society Quarterly, 5 (October, 1921): 59-73. This seminal work brought forth impor- tant biographical data about Vanderlyn, but created long- lasting confusion with his listing of all upper Hudson colonial portraits known to him and the indiscriminate attribution of all to Pieter Vanderlyn. Mary Black iden- tified specific stylistic characteristic of the painter and made a checklist of works attributable to him in “The Gansevoort Limner,” The Magazine Antiques, 96 (1969): 738-744. A manuscript in Senate House collee- tions, Kingston, in Vanderlyn’s hand is related to inscrip- tions on portraits now attributed to him. The finding is discussed by Black in “Limners of the Upper Hudson Valley,” American Painting to 1776. A Reappraisal. Winterthur Conference Report 1971. (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1971), 23444. Harris and others should have been guided by traditional at- tributions to Vanderlyn claimed by Kingston portrait

34 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

owners, who had inherited the right information along 34Mary Black, “Contributions toward a History of Early with their portraits. 33Eric Mercer, English Art 1553-1625 (Oxford: The

Eighteenth-Century New York Portraiture: Identifica- tion of the Aetatis Suae and Wendell Limners.”

Clarendon Press, 1962), 145-216; and Roy Strong, The English Icon: Elizabethan&Jacobean Portraiture (Lon- don: The Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art, 1969).

American Art Journal 12, (Autumn, 1980): 3 1. 35Janet Montgomery, “Reminiscens~es,” Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook 1930,15: 56-57.