watermark: upper part of a crown (Arms of Amsterdam?)

…; sale, Samuel van Huls (1655-1734, The Hague), The Hague (Swart), 14 May 1736 sqq., Album CC, no. 1593 (‘105 Piéces de toutes sortes de Desseins à la Chinoise, don’t la plûpart ont servies pour faire les Estampes des Voyages de Dapper, Nieuhoff, Kircherus, &c. On les vendra en détail’); ...; ? sale, Aron de Joseph de Pinto (1710-58, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 11 April 1785 sqq., no. 553 (‘De Historie van de groote Mogol, met de Pen en oostind. Inkt gewassen, door R. de Hooge, drie en twintig stuks op 12 bladen’), fl. 6, to ‘Crajenschot’, or no. 554 (‘Twee andere dito, geteekend als de voorgaande, door dito’), fl. 10, with two other lots, to ‘Byer’;¹¹Copy RKD ...; sale, O. Brenner et al., Amsterdam (R.W.P. de Vries), 14 December 1911, no. 1356; ...; ? sale, collection M.B., Amsterdam (Mensing & Son [F. Muller]), 7 April 1938, no. 1011; ...; from Friedrich Werner van Oestéren (1874-1953), Berlin,²²Cf. https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd117106860.html; https://www.zvab.com/buch-suchen/autor/oesteren-friedrich-werner-van-schriftsteller-1874-1953/ fl. 25, to the museum (L. 2228), with support from the F.G. Wallerfonds, 1941

Object number: RP-T-1941-21

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the F.G. Waller-Fonds

This small drawing of feasting men in oriental costumes is indented for transfer and was made as a design for a book illustration. Wilson accepted it as an autograph rejected study by Romeyn de Hooghe for the Curieuse Aenmerckingen der bysondereste Oost en West-Indische Verwonderenswaerdige Dingen (‘Curious observations of the most remarkable things of the East and West Indies’; Utrecht 1682) by Simon de Vries (1624-1708).³³W.H. Wilson, The Art of Romeyn de Hooghe: An Atlas of European Late Baroque Culture, 3 vols., Cambridge (MA) 1974. (PhD diss., Harvard University), II, p. 355. However, as Antoon Ott suggested in 2010, the drawing actually relates to an illustration in reverse on page 79) of Asia, of Naukeurige Beschryving van Het Rijk des Grooten Mogols (‘Asia, or accurate description of the empire of the great Mughals’; Amsterdam 1672) by Olfert Dapper (1636–1689).⁴⁴A. Ott, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe as a Designer of Prints for the Publisher Jacob van Meurs’, Delineavit & Sculpsit 34 (2010), p. 24. That book was already referred to in the description of a group of 105 ‘Chinese’ drawings in the 1736 sale of Samuel van Huls (1655-1734). The illustration appears in the (second) volume about Persia, showing the feasting habits of the people of Dagestan. The inscribed number ‘79’, which Wilson considered as possibly original, refers to that page.⁵⁵W.H. Wilson, The Art of Romeyn de Hooghe: An Atlas of European Late Baroque Culture, 3 vols., Cambridge (MA) 1974 (PhD diss., Harvard University), II, p. 355.

The figures in the illustration are consuming a kind of barley beer called ‘Bregga’, which made them rather loud (‘by den drank zijn zy zeer luit-ruchtigh), according to Dapper (who himself had never travelled outside of Europe).⁶⁶Cf. D. Odell, ‘The Soul of Transactions: Illustration and Johan Nieuhof’s Travels in China’, De Zeventiende Eeuw 17 (2001), pp. 238-39; his texts are largely based on the reports of Jesuit missionaries. The ‘table’ is laid on the floor, and food is served in wooden troughs. Whereas the men wear caps, the women leave their hair to hang loose in multiple plaits (‘in veertigh lokken gevlochten’).

Another design for the same book is Wedding in India in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (inv. no. RSA 451).⁷⁷K. Andrews, Catalogue of Netherlandish Drawings in the National Gallery of Scotland, 2 vols., coll. cat. Edinburgh 1985, I, p. 38 (first noting the context with Dapper’s travel book and suggesting an attribution to Romeyn de Hooghe), II, fig. 261; A. Ott, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe as a Designer of Prints for the Publisher Jacob van Meurs’, Delineavit & Sculpsit 34 (2010), pp. 24 and 27 (n. 17). Its annotated number ‘45’ also refers to the location of the illustration, found in volume I, page [45] (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k991096n/f56.image){target="_blank"}).

If the present drawing is indeed by De Hooghe (the ‘signature’ most likely was added later), stylistic discrepancies from inv. no. RP-T-1942-8, close in date, would best be explained by a different stage in the design process (detailed design vs. first sketch). De Hooghe, who himself did not travel, must have relied on reports and travel accounts or on illustrations of others. The Amsterdam publisher Jacob van Meurs (?-1679) specialized in travel books that became highly influential, providing iconographic patterns for the depiction of exotic subjects.⁸⁸A. Ott, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe as a Designer of Prints for the Publisher Jacob van Meurs’, Delineavit & Sculpsit 34 (2010), p. 25. The present square format – somewhat unusual for book illustrations – may have served as a model for other illustrations, such as those in the Samoyedic People during Summer of circa 1692 by Gerard van Houten (1675-1706), for which see inv. no. RP-T-00-167.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

W.H. Wilson, The Art of Romeyn de Hooghe: An Atlas of European Late Baroque Culture, 3 vols., Cambridge (MA) 1974 (PhD diss., Harvard University), II, pp. 354-55, no. 8 (fig. 256; as ‘An Eastern Entertainment’, an illustration to Simon de Vries, Curieuse Aenmerkingen Der bysondereste Oost- en West-Indische Verwonderenswaerdige Dingen, Utrecht 1682); A. Ott, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe as a Designer of Prints for the Publisher Jacob van Meurs’, Delineavit & Sculpsit 34 (2010), pp. 24, 27 (n. 18)

A. Stefes, 2019, 'possibly Romeyn de Hooghe, Inhabitants of Dagestan, Feasting, Amsterdam, c. 1672', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200140480