RKD STUDIES

Volume 3, page 110-119

... nburgh's, where Van Pee and De Grebber were, who, because of De Lairesse's ugly face, stood there looking at him in astonishment. Uijlenburgh showed him an empty canvas, and asked him when he wanted to commence. At once De Lairesse answered and continued: what would you have me paint on that? It makes no difference to me, said Uylenburgh, paint on it whatever your inclination is. At once a palette with paint and a crayon pen were given to him, and he set himself in front of the e...

... multitude of drawings in red chalk and in pencil handled in a skilful and easy manner, of which the most important as well as the greatest number are now kept and highly esteemed in the art cabinet of Mister Jeronimus Tonneman.Add to this the large number of his etched prints which, gathered and sold as a complete work by Nicolaes Visscher II as model for and service to artists, are also treated in a light and elegant way like his drawings.All this does not only serve to amaze us, but the descendants will hardly believe (when they are told) that so much could be done in o...

... tes to me were at all plausible, I would be able to agree that I should be suspected, but he gives me Aeneas as lover who lost his life three hundred years before, which is thus dubiously defended by the shade of Stratonica; What you say is already something special. It is true that you were brought into the world three hundred years after him, but Virgil had so many reasons for bringing you together that he judged that the three hundred years that separate you were no matter of importance....

... nores the complaints and prayers,While his henchmen already rob the treasure of the Ark:But God’s Almighty arm resists his pride from on high.Here lies he who only just impressive, great and full of splendour.Entered the treasury, now undone by the reception byThe spirits of heaven in the guise of youths;While they standing to either side of him jump him.He, richly armed and well equipped compelsThe fleet steed, which trea...

... ançois van Hoogstraten I in a verse on a portrait of his brother and my master Samuel van Hoogstraten, saidHe rhymes in painting and paints in poetry.This also applies to our poet Pieter Verhoek, who with his pen, even as De Lairesse with the brush, displays the beautifully paired light and dark, observing the natural projection and recession and the pure treatment thereof, and that which is praiseworthy in the art work is sketched using letters. And this one may say of his brushworks in general. After all he has always let what is most important and...

... in history as they deserve.To continue now with our Liège phoenix, I have to say that in all elements of art he sought nature as his model. He dressed the male figures in drapery to study the broad folds. Light silk fabric, and various sparkling reflections, with thin crepe and fine linen, arranged in a lively way and naturally folded, are the adornment and dress of all of his female figures. He knew how to imitate silver, gold, and many kinds of metals, with their reflections and intense glitter. He brought no less gracefulness to his pictures with the depiction of different types of marble columns, vases, and portals etc. He especially excelled...

Volume 2, page 200-209

... til it has obtained with distinction what it had imagined. Of this we have an example inBAREND GRAAT, born in Amsterdam on the 21st of September of the year 1628. His mother nurtured him with much care and love until his tenth or eleventh year, after which she sent him to school in Heusden for a period of four or five consecutive years, after which he returned home. His mother, who only wanted what was best for him, no doubt considered one or another means by which he would not have too much time on his hands,...

... ...

... red and black chalk as with the brush, and was able to make them pleasing and give them a natural touch.He raised few students i...

... nd cash boxes,Should now and then, like ear and eye, be closed or open.The fertile ear of corn and the mild vine wreath,(Which encircles the heart) predicts plenty, food and drink.Thank Graat who with his brush, now four times eighteen years.Achieves in this piece that art is paired with wisdom.After this he still made various art works with his brush until the thread of his life was cut off at the age of 81 years, 1 month and 13 days on the 4th of November of the year 1709, after he had been bedridden for six weeks.Govert Bidloo made these epigrams on o...

... h a case, since for lack of such most mistakes in art are made. For it is almost well made what has been well thought out.He was asked to make a sketch for a large piece which was to be placed against the wall above the windows of the advocates’ room in the city hall of Amsterdam, which he did. In the middle of the drawing one sees Truth, which is uncovered by Time, and next to her Folly represented by small children and Forbearance by a yoke....

... ervant of Profane Law, and behind him the aldermen, again dressed after the fashion of Roman Praetors or bailiffs. T...

... r as the addenda are concerned, which are required for each emblem in particular, these have t...

Volume 3, page 390-399

... ing received his law degree there, he was granted not only a golden chain by the King, but also, because of his outstanding learning in these years, the King's portrait.His flattering song goddess inserted the fire of poetry in the bosom of Geeraert Brandt in the spring of his youth. This may be seen in his plea for the publication of the play De Veinzende Torquatus, which Caspar van Baerle honoured with the following verse:...

... spry genius and skill with the brush (by the claw, goes the saying, one knows the lion) in his early years, through the close copying of the piece by Frans van Mieris, which was a man's job. But what should I say? The goddess of art favoured him, and his natural zeal served him as schoolmistress. Yes, he had assimilated that commendable manner of brushwork so firmly through his special powers of observation that he applied it from then on, so that his master later employed him...

... dress of figures after them. That is also the case with his nudes after the best casts of the antiques in p...

... ning the making of his own portrait, to be sent to the Duke of Tuscany [3], along with another piece depicting Solomon's first judgement [4], the preliminary sketch [5] for which he showed to the Elector before his departure from Amsterdam. He further ordered him to bring the pieces, when completed, to Düsseldorf in person, just as it came to pass in the following year, 1697. This gave such delight to the art-loving Elector that he took him into his service, this being for six months a year, on a contract for 4,...

... ven liberal arts which show their gratitude and submission to the images of the Elector and his Consort, hung on a pyramid by small angels and crowned by Piety [25]. In the foreground sits the Art of Painting, displaying the portrait of Sir van der Werff in an oval.How enamoured of art the Elector was, and how mad he was about the elevated painting of our Knight, especially of his later period, is shown by this: that King August of Poland, when he came to visit our Knight in Rotterdam in the year 1710 and he showed him his life-sized self portrai...

... nt from his arranging to pay our Knight 6,000 guilders in gold ducats, which he had struck when, after the death of Emperor Joseph I, he became Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire along with Elector of Saxony. He also said: I shall have your wife return home well satisfied, and had a set of toiletries, or the silver belonging to a night table, consisting of 32 items, besides 2 additional large rinsing basins, delivered to her.With this worthy present we also want to remember that Anton Ulrich, Duke of Wolfenbüttel, came to Rotterdam in the year 1709...

Volume 2, page 170-179

... r to be made knights of the hemp rope.They got the beggar to sit down with much resistance in such a posture as the sketching on the canvas required, as if he were Saint Peter himself; and no matter what he was later promised to get him to sit once more, he did not wish to return, as he be...

... , it means to approach someone about debt. Nagel [nail] is the shell of the front part of our fingers, but the St. Joseph guild brothers understand spyker [nail] with this word. So it is also with thumbs, trees, feathers, pans, discs, swallow tails and other words take on a different meaning for some than for others and therefore need to be determined by an adjective. In the same way it is the supplements, dress and individual features which at first sight indicate the subject matter of scenes. Thus from oldest days the most famous painters have had the most...

... ive cities of the valley of Siddin attacked him, killed his commanders in chief with the sword and, as part of the raid, also took his related friend Lot with them, he perused them with the natives of his house and tore Lot and the robbed booty out of their hands.One should also consider that Orientals who were rich and head of peoples always went about hung with precious stones and dressed in expensive silks.Do not imagine, painting youth, that I wish to burden you with pointless...

... to the depiction of personages which, especially in an historical depiction, must be considered. Hear with what Horace, by way of his translator Andries Pels, charges the poets, which ...

... ly grows so that you develop a taste for it and strive for it by itself. This has broken the thread concerning our comments about the depiction of the patriarch, which we now pick up again. If we then depict Abraham (whom we have already sketched as estimable in features and dress) as bare legged and poorly dressed, with wild hair like despair in the rendering of the passions by Charles Le Brun and behind him a hut of old planks as dike workers are wont to use as their quarters, I have to decide that the maker has not understood that part of art which is called the depiction of persons, because even if one sees...

... t Abraham is depicted. That may be so. However, it does not answer to the rule of the depiction of a personage, which must be paired with the supplement. For would it not be ridiculous to paint two female persons in poor and unobserved dress and expect to have them taken for Cleopatra and Sofonisba by the addition of an adder and a cup with poison? So that for such subjects the perfect depiction of the person must accompany the attribute.The supplements are either int...

... er from the cliff and the jaws of the sea monster, because paintings serve to delight the eyes and as decoration of walls, when a lily-white nude had great advantage compared to a mole skin. With even greater freedom one may depict Jupiter with the premature Bacchus (saved from the fire that consumed his mother Semele) in his arm (just as w...

... ors thereby. Molière,* when he wished to bring the obstinate natural scientist Jacques Rohault on the stage, was able to obtain the latter's hat, folded in an unusual way, on loan. The players were able to use the same hat so well that all the spectators believed that Rohault himself appeared on the stage, and acquired great fame by this.If someone should say that one does not always have such an aid ready and at hand, I will give as answer: That those whose portraits are depicted on coins and in marble indicate this by the refinement of their clothes.--------* Johann Burchard Mencken, in his De quakzalvery der geleerden....

... n their marble busts, on the title pages of their famous works. One finds the Roman Caesars based on their numismatic images with Joachim Oudaan and with Abraham Bogaert in his De Roomsche Monarchy, including the first twelve of them in the print depictions by Titian. Finally there are the worthy images of our Saviour Jesus after credible depictions conforming with the description that Pilate gave of these in a letter sent to the Roman Council, as recorded in the Church History by Irenaeus. In the De kerkelyke en weereldlyke historien by Willem Goeree one finds the images of Herod the child killer, Herod Antipas, with Herodias, Aesop and still others. Certai...

... ned Saffo, the graceful Dante, the lusty Petrarch and the amorous Boccaccio, Tibaldeus and many others, who in groups seated on the mount of song under the shade of laurel trees, or write, or sing, or play etc. It is also said that he followed the features of the muses, each in particular, after marble portraits.Raphael was not the first to invent this. Examples by artists of earlier times have spurred him on to this praiseworthy practice. Do you want proof of the saying, which has been preserved in memory since the fall of Troy and...

Volume 3, page 1-9

... ter gave early signs that his affections inclined elsewhere, namely to the art of drawing, for early on he covered the walls of his father's shop with figures and animals with charcoal, and that so inventively that ev...

... he wished to come live at the court in Vienna, he would richly pay him for his art and in addition give him an annual present of a thousand rix-dollars. But he declined this with the pretence that his wife was not in agreement.He also painted several artful candlelight scenes in his days. One of them depicts a woman who, having drunk too much, has fallen asleep and who, derided by a joker, is crowned with a piss-pot. It was pleasingly rendered in print by the artful engraver Hendrik Bary [2], uncle of Mister G. Cincq, currently...

... lies in a faint, along with a medicine master and a crying old woman [4]. For every hour that he spent on this art work he received a golden ducat, adding up to a sum of fifteen hundred guilders when it was completed.The gentleman received numerous requests for this piece from the Grand Duke of Florence [= Cosimo III de' Medici], who had three thousand guilders (but in vain) offered for it. This art work is unanimously taken for a miracle of the brush, and therefore Willem van Heemskerk found reason...

... that were half or largely completed, his eye and then his predilection at once fell so mightily on one of these works that he begged the artist to finish it for him as quickly as possible [6]. In it was depicted a company of damsels. In the foreground stood one dressed in white satin, having a lute in the hand and looking as if having got up from a chair upholstered in green velvet which stood behind her. In addition to her there is another...

... er tray, seems to be waiting for the empty glass. Opposite her is a handsome gentleman dressed in a black velvet cloak, with next to it a table covered with a rich carpet and...

... particularly good friend of Jan Steen and loved his peasant antics so much that he was captivated by his company and often visited him. But as Jan Steen sank ever more into drinking (he who handles tar says the old Dutch proverb, will be stained by it) it sometimes happened that our Mieris erred in the measure of his drinking. Who, says Seneca, is equally wise at all times?Later on, when Jan set up a liquor store and became a purveyor of wet wares, Mieris sometimes looked him up. And when Jan's cellar had gone dry and the shop closed, he tempted Mieris to go elsewhere with h...

... inging, I hear someone calling as if in danger. Then she took the lamp and headed for the noise, where she found Frans sadly sunk into the muck. She called out to her husband, who in all haste shot over and saved him from the mud. They wiped the filth off his clothes as best they could and discovered more and more from his velvet coat with gold buttons that it had to be a respectable man who had come to such dire straits because of the dark.They brought him to their upstairs apartment, cleaned him further, lit a fire, gave him a little brandy, as he was quite upset, and laid him down on pi...

... o had a considerable time ago, with the aid of her husband, rescued someone who had fallen into a sewer. The woman said yes, but that she did not know who it was. That's no problem (answered he), at once took the piece from under his cloak, and placed it in her hands, saying: there, keep this piece of painting well. It is for the service that you did back then. But should you ...

Volume 1, page 300-309

... rrupted sacrifice of Isaac according to description by Flavius Josephus, who said that: after God had prevented the intention of the patriarch, they embraced and kissed each other. Angel also admired the great spirit and ingenious ideas that he demonstrated with respect to the representation of Bathsheba, where he depicted everything in a manner most considered, and therefore as it probably took place at the time....

... his year of birth). Dordrecht claims the honour of his birth, just as Amsterdam that of his education. He was two or three years old when he arrived in Amsterdam. When arrived at the age of reason and finding himself inclined to art, he practiced in it under the great Rembrandt. Both nature and fortune favoured him. Thus he acquired great fame and lots of money in the service of his old age, for he died at a good age in 1681.Next to a great number of portraits, naturally and powerfully painted, one also sees a multitude of his praiseworthy artworks both in churches as elsewhere which will always support his fame in art.The great Agrippian commemorates his...

... ats the holy watersAnd the upper admiral who has entered her service,That he may make seafaring safe for t...

... used--------* After the battle at the River Liris, the Romans sent Cajus Fabricius as deputation to Achilles, full cousin of Pyrrhus and King of Iperus, who accepted his presence but sought to win him to his side, first by gifts, since he had heard that he was poor, and later by threats of death by a tremendous snorting elephant, but the Roman remained firm and implacable, not even when Achilles offered him a quarter of the empire would he want to stay with him, and showed that a noble Roman valued virtue and loyalty more than the world’s treasures. See Livy in his History of Rome....

... o begin with a changed stage and its apparatus requires a little time, we wish to entertain the reader with a short address, so that the waiting will not sadden him. It serves to supply additional information to what we have said on page 82 about the sacrifices of the heathens, along with their equipment and supplements that must be considered, to which a painter must pay heed when he wishes to depict some heathen sacrifices with what appertains, including the placement of the statue of the deity, for whom the sacrifice is performed, on an elevated pedestal or a hollow niche, be it nude or dressed, in which the art practitioner has freedom...

... heavy for the summer and much too cold for the winter, and instead gave him one made of linen which could cover him in the summer and warm him in the winter.The painter should also know when he paints the festivities of Mars and Venus that the servants of the idols celebrated them in changing clothing, namely that the women put on a man’s armour and set a helmet on the head, and the men dressed in a woman’s skirt. Especially the Assyrians did this according to the testimony of Julius Firmicus, and Herodotus did not fail...

... ve Dea? That is: Be it that thou art a god or a goddess? Yes this mistake went so far that they even made sacrifices to statues or gods formed in the guise of both sexes. Of these one may reckon the Cyprian Venus as the first.This goddess (according to the testimony of Macrobius) was depicted in women’s clothing and with a man’s beard, and was worshipped by men in women’s dress and by women in men’s clothing. In the same way blind heathendom of old also depicted Fortune (as depicted in the small book [6] by Mister Jacob Spon from the altar of the unknown...

... he latter depicted their Jupiter in the guise of a pyramid tapering from a wide square base to a turned peak, indicating by this that natural intellect (compare to the base) is not empowered to understand divine and heavenly things, since they can only be seen by clear-sighted and enlightened eyes (depicted by the rising peak). And when the priests wished to consult it th...

... abroum, and with a sword on its side it was named Carius.The Thebans and various African peoples depicted their Jupiter Ammon with ram’s horns on both sides of the head. And if we consult Servius, the great commentator on Virgil, for the reason for this strange head dress, he will tell us that Jupiter Ammon was depicted with ram’s horns because his answers or oracles had as many turns and twists as such horns. And (according to Eusebius) those of Crete honoured Jupiter in the fire stones and swore thus by him: If I knowingly che...

... e moon and honoured as the bringer of light by night. She was then depicted with a burning torch in both hands, as one sees her image thus stamped on a medal of Faustina with the inscription DIANA LUCIFERA.Her statue stood displayed in an entirely different guise with those people who took her for the feeder and producer of all living creatures. She was thus honoured by the Ephesians, which is why one sees her on the back of a medal of the Emperor Claudius, standing in a temple portal with the inscription DIAN. EPHE. Of which François Perrier shows us a clearly drawn copy in print (following...

Volume 1, page 200-209

... ward of the dying.This was passed on to Christians of all lands and kingdoms and still remains in use, especially for men who have deserved it by their brave deeds. Of all the abundance of grave inscriptions of the lettered world (says Alkemade) one excels above all others for brevity and most powerful expressions, being that standing on the tomb of the Rotterdam maritime hero Egbert Bartholomeus Kortenaer, who died on the bed of honour...

... ainter to pay attention to them, well then, he can depict the famous queen Artemisia in the middle of her splendid court procession, in widow’s dress, with a golden chalice or dish in her hand, ready to imbibe the mixed ash from the corpse of Mausolus (a rare example of the love of a wom...

... was inside one of the great colossi and found a large square chamber in the centre, with walls made of Theban marble and in the same a chest of the same stone. Without doubt (says he) the body of the founder had lain in it. Diodorus Siculus book 1, chapter 5 gives this reason for the emptiness of these graves: The least of the corpses of the Egyptian kings in those pyramids or cenotaphs remained there, for the people were so severely taxed and embittered that they threw out the dead bodies of the kings; which is why some Egyptian kings had themselves secretly buried in unknown places....

... , who only came into the world 300 years after him, but he does so ironically, by having the speaking ghost of Stratonica thus defend Dido: He was a widower, you a widow, both were necessitated to leave your fatherland.--------* Ruse. Cyrus had a lot of barrels filled with wine, and veered off as if he were afraid of the hosts of Tomiris, leaving the wine in his encampment. The pursuing Scythians, not used to this drink, slobbered it up so richly that they fell down drunk here and there, and fell asleep, whereupon Cyrus’ army turned around in all haste and killed the Scythians....

... famous Johann Liss, otherwise Pan, artful painter of figures and histories, life- and half life sized.Oldenburg, his place of birth, did not produce his equal in art before or after him. After he had mastered the basics needed to progress in art (with whom in that region I do not know) he headed down to the Netherlands and joined Hendrick Goltzius, whose way of painting he chose over others to his advantage,...

... the first time) [3]. These and other pieces spread his fame everywhere, so that he decided to pursue that fame and went to the Netherlands and there made various pieces, both histories as merry companies in which they practice song and playing, the figures being dressed in the Venetian manner.Amongst his works the fall of Phaethon* is particularly praised because of the inventive caprioles and--------* According to the writings of Ovid, Phaeton was the son of the sun god Apollo and the nymph Clymene. But Pausanias and He...

... in Leiden, depicting the story of the prodigal son, which was excellently painted but dressed more in the modern manner than was his custom [5], as he otherwise knew how to...

... , who will arrive on stage in his turn as painter, who paid the sum of 2,000 guilders for it.This Van der Meer, who had a white-lead works and fine home outside Utrecht, was hit by the misfortune that soldiers razed it all down to the ground, so that he fell on hard times. This picture, barely saved from the terror, seemed to him his only hope of recovery. He therefore decided, with the approval of Frederik van Nassau, Lord of Zuylestein,...

Volume 1, page 100-109

... ther, and how everyone’s faceAnd function, like a singer’s beatPerforms its function: how low and great--------when led to the altar. Just as otherwise the loins were covered with a sacrificial cloth stitched with gold and silk runs, and the head decorated with a splendid sacrificial cowl which, stretched between the horns with silk cords t...

... hen someone heard sacrilegious words being spoken. At a later time certain rules were introduced, for we read with R. Maimonides that if someone, being and Israelite, hears another Israelite take God’s name in vain, he must tear his clothes. But if he hears it from a heathen, that is not essential. And thus the apostles erred in this by following their impulse too far. We have answered this objection in the commentary on the life of Den Kruisheld, Paulus, p. 55. Here it is only to the point that we show (to lead the curious youth on the right path) the manner of the tearing of clothes....

... o show an old Hebrew, Greek, or Roman event or history, we have to make use of authors who lived closest to the time of the event with respect to the dress of the figures with regard to the land’s customs, manner of ceremonies, with their entire appurtenances, equipment and tools: or of the depictio...

... of a Cyrus.However, though he used to his advantage,Whatever came down from the four corners of the earth,Much seemed to be lacking, much in propriety of adornment,When he would dress his figures in clothing.and even less than that painter who showed Cleopatra tempting the snake to bite her in the foreground of a painting with a map of Amsterdam in its ne...

... esthood used to cover their heads, and those who attended the religious ceremonies used the slip of their outer garment, or a veil. This is confirmed by Plutarch, who says: The Romans approaching the Gods were wont to honour them with covered head, to bear witness to humility of mind. And it is not beyond possibility, as observed by Joachim Oudaan, that the Apostle Paul forbade men to prophesy with uncovered head, to contrast the practice of the Christians to that of the heathens and thus make it manifest, just as this was the intention of Moses, which we demonstrated in detail, using Spencer [= Philipp Jacob Spener?] in the Brieven van Philaléthes.This head cover or upper priestly hat, ...

... : That, according to the teachings of Orpheus and Pythagoras, woollen clothes were deemed unfitting for such as they, wool being from a dead body, which was considered to be unclean. As a consequence priests should always be depicted in a white shroud, as should all those who perform any actions thereabouts and those who were ...

... Abraham Bogaert’s De Roomsche mogentheid, p. 84. Sometimes they also covered their head with a wreath of laurel or oak leaves.III. The Slaughtering...

... ine Augustus. See Oudaan's De Roomsche mogentheid, plate CXIII. 11. 12.And seeing that the ancient Romans also used lamps in their temples, houses or hearths, we have also drawn this Lamp. VIII. for her strange form and appearance, to be of service to the art practitioners if they sometimes show some statues of the Gods, in temples, or covered portals, as it was the practice of the same Romans to hang burning lamps both by day and by night. Of which lamplight the priests, who kept night vigil in turn, also made use. It is also useful for those who wish to show household gods on their altars,...

... the altar* with this trimming for a long time. The pelvic bones of the slaughtered sacrificial animals later served to represent piety and religion, and were placed in front of the altar XI.§ These altars were round--------* Thus seen on the back of a coin of Caesar, shown in Table CXIV, fig. 4, in Oudaan’s Roomsche mogentheid.§ Altar. Heathen writings mention an altar of great height, which Apollo had piled up from some pelvic bones or horns of butchered sacrificial animals, which Daniel Heinsius uses thus in his Hymnus oft Lof-sanck van Bacchus....

... g which an artist practicing ancient histories ought to know) what kind of sacrificial cattle is brought to the altar, seeing that the same offering arouses pleasure in one godhead and revulsion in another.Pigs were slaughtered in many cases and sacrificed to many godheads, such as to Jupiter, in addition to a bull and sheep every five years in Rome by the disciplinarian of the field of Mars, to Venus at weddings---------They say that in olden ...

1. The Early Editions of De groote schouburgh Compared

... 1719 and 1721 by Houbraken himself and his widow Sara. This version was published by Piet Swillens...

... portant collectors who are discussed by Houbraken and we even have a letter with drawing that Houbraken addressed to De la Court on 16 May 1710.2 For those reasons alone the original introductions are here transl...

... ere long dead by then, suggesting that someone else, most likely Johan van Gool), perused De groote schouburgh and was prepared to make changes. That same individual must have changed the final sentence on page 328. In 1721 we read ‘By thus ending ...

... d. For those not fluent in Dutch, the only translation available so far was the 1880 German edition by Alfred von Wurzbach (1846-1915). However, it is Houbraken Translated that has at last opened the way for all ...

Volume 3, page 280-289

... dressTo welcome attractive May full of joy to Flora’s flower bower,Where the West wind plays softly through the trees...

... sure of the art of paintingWho then know how best to follow nature in her appearance and eleganceMay decorate his head with this wreath.The Year 1650, more fruitful in the production of artists than all other years, will yield material for all tastes for our theatre through changes in the ingredients, which make the same diet tasty all over again. Thus, where we previously had two or three painters appear more or less on the year of their birth, we now want to change our method, and accompany them with a good number of their contemporaries whose birth we were not able to determin...

... en Massijs fell in love with a young girl who had a painter as lover at the time, but she declared that if Quinten were a painter instead of a dusty smith, she would like him better and woul...

... on his own wings from those modest beginnings that I have seen with astonishment a drawing by him, outlined with the pen and shaded with East India ink, after the Bacchus of Mantegna, so close to the print that even the expression in it had been carefully observed. It is therefore still saved by his son, Nicolaas Verkolje, in his memory.Spurred on by the same passion he completely mastered the basics of perspective in the course of a month.Then he undertook to paint in oils on his own, taking great pleasure in the brush art of Gerard Pietersz. van Zijl, otherwise known as Gerards, after which he practised and eventually got so...

... traits these are included; the ones in which he depicted the children of Mister Salomon van der Heul and the children of burgomasters Pieter Teding van Berkhout [3], and Vredenburg, as also the portraits of lawyer De Bries and his wife, preacher Geeraert Brandt and also of his son Johannes Brandt and his housewife, and especially that of la...

... was him who lent our Verkolje (seeing in him an ambition to search out everything concerning art) the books on perspective (which we have mentioned), in which he progressed so greatly that he surpassed Coning in little time.With this epilogue it also comes to mind (what we might otherwise have easily forgotten) how, and by whom, he was finally cured of the defect to his leg.His parents received news of his excellence Burry [= Francesco Giuseppe Borri]. This was a famous chemist, and adept in the art of healing, who, to escape the scourge of the faithful, stayed for a while in the Netherlands. He was seen by some...

... n the state of his health, until with the ingestion of the final powder, when he so thoroughly excreted slime and filth from top and bottom that there were hardly enough pots in the house to catch it all, after which they did nothing to the leg but clean it every day with fresh dressings.It is conceivable that the mentioned Borri will have discerned that the spoiled saps which were released by the opening of this infirmity were preventing the healing and made the wound fistulous, and thus initially worked primarily on the internal bad condition by mean...

... o ripen, whereas haste always brings forth miscarriages. And Baltasar Gracián says: To sleep on business that one has to do, is better than to be kept awake by business that is done.The next day he still pretended to know nothing and went out for a walk, but having come home towards evening, he said to his student (without letting any change in himself show), that he had received a hundred ducats...