Andries Beekman (active 1651-57), attributed to Heinrich Muche (1649-after 1696), attributed to the Master of the Berlin Sketchbook (active 17th Century) and Dutch School, 17th Century

An Album with 55 Drawings of Natives from Brazil, Africa, Persia, India and the East Indies by Beekman (7), attributed to Muche (18), attributed to the artist of the Berlin Album (11), drawings by other hands (19); and Chinese watercolours, drawings after

Details

Andries Beekman (active 1651-57), attributed to Heinrich Muche (1649-after 1696), attributed to the Master of the Berlin Sketchbook (active 17th Century) and Dutch School, 17th Century
An Album with 55 Drawings of Natives from Brazil, Africa, Persia, India and the East Indies by Beekman (7), attributed to Muche (18), attributed to the artist of the Berlin Album (11), drawings by other hands (19); and Chinese watercolours, drawings after Chinese examples, a Japanese and a Chinese woodcut, a Flemish drawing of a landscape, two sheets with drawn copies, and 5 sheets with Immortals in coloured thread glued on, all apparently early 17th Century
most drawings with inscriptions identifying the subjects (verso)
Andries Beekman (active 1651-1657)
(all pen and grey or brown ink, watercolour and/or bodycolour, watermark Strasburg lily or countermark IHS, black lead framing lines)

A. A Chinese with a Parasol holding a Fan
333 x 223 mm. NLG.10,000-15,000 B. An East Indian holding a Stick and a Box
326 x 218 mm. NLG. 6,000- 8,000 C. An elegant East Indian Woman with a Fan
300 x 210 mm. NLG. 7,000-10,000 D. An African Woman suckling her Child
297 x 206 mm. NLG. 4,000- 6,000 E. An East Indian Woman with a Bundle on her Head,
her child holding her hand
326 x 218 mm. NLG. 6,000- 9,000 F. An African with Spear and Shield attacking
330 x 208 mm. NLG. 7,000-10,000 G. A Malay with a Creese
310 x 219 mm. NLG. 6,000- 9,000
Attributed to Heinrich Muche (1649-after 1696)

H. A Persian Couple dancing
inscribed 'Inwoonders vand: Golfo: van Persia: ofte.gamron:' (verso); pencil, pen and grey ink, watercolour, countermark device, black lead framing lines
172 x 189 mm.; and five other drawings of Persians by the same hand inscribed 'Een parsiaense/Vrouw', 'Een Soldaet Vand Conick van parsien/persia','Een Parsianse Vrouwe;' and 'Een Persiaens, Dansende vrouw' (verso)
(6) NLG. 3,000- 5,000
I. A Fakir seated
inscribed 'Een vaccier ofte Boetdoender Soo 18 Jaer en 6 Maenden Soodanighheeft geseten' (verso); pen and grey ink, watercolour, watermark arms of Berne
212 x 194 mm.; and three other drawings of Indian Women inscribed 'Babylonse Vrouwens;', Een Babelionse Lichte Vrou' and of a priest inscribed 'Een Beniaens Prister', all by the same hand
(4) NLG. 3,000- 5,000
J. An African Family near the Tafelberg at the Cape of Good Hope, Africa
indistinctly inscribed '....n vand(e) (Capo da Bon)a Espe(rante)' (verso)
black lead, pen and grey ink, watercolour, watermark arms of Berne, black lead framing lines
230 x 197 mm.; a drawing of an African holding a spear, by the same hand, inscribed 'Een Negero van Angola:', and a copy after that by another 17th Century hand
(3) NLG. 5,000- 7,000
K. A Tapuya Man; and A Tapuya Woman
pen and grey ink, watercolour, (1) heightened with white, watermark arms of Berne
251 x 196 mm.; and watercolours of a Mestizo man and woman inscribed 'Een Moulaeto' and 'Een Moelaetinne' (verso), an African man and woman with child, all by the same hand and of similar size, and a copy after the second and drawings of a Tupinamba man and woman by another 17th Century hand
(9) NLG. 15,000-20,000
L. Attributed to the Master of the Berlin Album (active 17th Century)
Eleven East Indian Figures
inscribed 'Twee Ternataenen','Een Tyoolinne', 'Een Malaeyer van Atchin','Een Moors Coopman','Een Caffrinne','Een Malayer.','Een Balijse Vrouw','Een Javaense Vrouw','Een Soloorees:-','Een Malabaerse Vrouwe:' and 'Een Iavaen:'
black lead, pen and grey or black ink, watercolour, watermarks foolscap (6) or countermarks IR (5)
296 x 200 mm. and smaller
(11) NLG. 6,000- 9,000
M. Dutch School, 17th Century:
Seven watercolours of various inhabitants of continents:
inscribed 'Van Benekaijs Geslaghten van S:Tomas als d'Indianen Seggen gants vervloekt', 'Canarijn Een Indianse Lantman Genamt Canarijn met vrou en Kinderen', 'Caffers Uyt Mocambycho', 'Abissijnen Uyt paep Jans Lant', 'Inhabytanten Omtrent.- Goa', 'Inwonders van Malabar tussen Goa en Goehijn aend'Zee kant daer die peper wast', 'Een Eylander Uyt Java.'
pen and brown ink, watercolour, some with bodycolour, watermark foolscap (3), countermark PR (4) and device (2)
314 x 206 mm. and smaller; and 8 watercolours, mostly of East Indian figures, attributed to the same hand
(15) NLG. 3,000 - 5,000
N. The album, with 95 leaves (190 pages) of blank paper, watermark Strasburg bend with letters WR and countermark LR, the album pages 400 x 280 mm., in a contemporary brown leather binding (broken spine and with defects), including four Chinese watercolours, eight drawings after Chinese prototypes, a Chinese and a Japanese 17th Century woodcut, a Flemish drawing of a landscape, two sheets with drawn copies, and five sheets with Immortals designed in coloured thread, glued on paper, the first page inscribed 'Deese Volgende Figuren, bennen Chineese Afgooden:', all apparently early 17th Century
the album pages averaging 400 x 280 mm., all others smaller
(22 in the album) NLG. 4,000- 6,000

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Lot Essay

This recently discovered 17th Century album comprises a variety of drawings, prints and curiosities documenting the interest of the Dutch in the inhabitants and culture of the countries they visited on their travels of exploration throughout the various continents of the world. The development of profitable business in the East and West Indies and the reports of these distant countries rather increased their interest. A number of 17th Century connoisseurs created abundant cabinets illustrating the culture and nature of the world, including shells, dried fish, stuffed animals, native weapons, textiles, works of art and other curiosities. Natives and much flora and fauna, as well as certain objects could naturally only be captured in pictures and drawings from life, then often assembled in albums, and sometimes copied or engraved. These were mostly accompanied by texts providing insight into the knowledge and surprising interpretations of these subjects by Western artists. Maps and views of the local topography would also contribute to the imaginary journeys of the connoisseur in his cabinet. One of the most important and well-known cabinets at the time was that of the Amsterdam lawyer Laurens van der Hem (1621-1678), who grangerised his eleven volume Atlas Maior published by Joan Blaeu in 1662 with numerous cartographical and topographical prints and drawings, even commissioning many artists abroad. His Atlas extended to 46 folio volumes, was acquired from Van der Hem's heirs in 1730 by Prince Eugène of Savoy for an astronomic 30,000 Guilders, and is now in the Austrian National Library (cf. J. van der Waals, Een wereldreiziger op papier, De Atlas van Laurens van der Hem (1621-1678), exhib. catalogue, Amsterdam, 1992)

One of the artists working for Van der Hem was Andries Beeckman (active circa 1651-57), a talented soldier from Zutphen, also employed by the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, V.O.C. (United East-India Company). Among the Dutch artists working in the Indies he is regarded as one of the most important, less for his artistic talents than for his precise rendering of natives and their culture. Beeckman's signed picture of Batavia (now Djakarta) of circa 1656 is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (L. Haks, G. Maris, Lexicon of Foreign Artists who Visualized Indonesia (1600-1950), Utrecht, 1995, p. 402, C3). Volume 44 of the Van der Hem Atlas in Vienna (Fol. 177-9, nos. 32.1-2) includes, apart from two topographical views, two watercolours of Caribbean natives by Beeckman, which are closely comparable to the seven watercolours of Chinese, East Indian and African natives in the present album.
M. O. Scalliet recently published an album in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris, with all the other known 55 watercolours by Beeckman, 37 of which show Chinese, East Indian and other natives, Une curiosité oublié: le "Livre de dessins faits dans un voyage aux Indes par un voyageur hollandais" du marquis de Paulmy, Archipel, no. 54, Paris, 1997, pp. 35-62. One of these is signed, and Scalliet (op. cit., p. 37) plausibly suggests that all were part of an album with 127 Beeckman drawings in Van der Hem's library, sold in Amsterdam on 18 April 1684, Boek 67, lot 29 (J. van der Waals, De Wereld binnen handbereik, Nederlandse kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, 1585-1735, Zwolle Amsterdam, 1992, p. 155). As Van der Waals points out (loc. cit.), the demand for drawings of this kind was such that many collectors had series copied, such as the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), living in Amsterdam, ordering his servant Sylvester Brownover to copy drawings after an unknown collection (British Library, London, Sloane Ms. 5253). This illustrates the complexity of identifying printed or drawn prototypes from copies, often executed decades later, and sometimes used in a different context.
Scalliet (loc. cit.) suggests Beeckman may also have drawn several identical series of figures on demand. This would seem to be confirmed by the fact that some of the drawings in the present album correspond with those in the Paris series (Scalliet, op. cit., figs. 5 and 10 are the same as A. and B. respectively), while they are not by a lesser hand. The elegant woman in C. and the man in one of the Paris drawings (Scalliet, op. cit., fig. 3), would seem to be the same as those in the foreground of the Rijksmuseum picture. The Ambonese soldier swinging his sword (Scalliet, op. cit., fig. 15) also appears in a version of Beeckman's picture, now in the Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam, on loan from the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, of which the attribution is uncertain (Scalliet, op. cit., pp. 47-8, where its location has been confused with that of the Rijksmuseum prototype). The tradition of copying was obviously also the basis for drawing D. in the present lot, which Beeckman copied after a print from T. Herbert's A relation of som eyeares travaile..., London, 1634, p. 17 (A. Smith, The Khoikhoi at the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town, 1993, p. 12), which again is the prototype for a drawing attributed to Muche, J. in the present lot. As Scalliet (op. cit., p. 40) observes, the figures in Beeckman's drawings illustrate the cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic society in the Dutch East Indies and especially Batavia, where, apart from Europeans, slaves from Africa (including 'Hottentots'), natives from India, China and Japan appear, along with descendants from these often interrelated groups. Some may have been drawn during Beeckman's stay at the Cape of Good Hope in December 1657, but may just as well have been done in the East Indies. Similar questions arise from the album with drawings by Caspar Schmalkalden in the Landesbibliothek, Gotha (W. Joost, Die wundersamen Reisen des Caspar Schmalkalden nach West- und Ostindien 1642-1652, Leipzig, 1987). These are related to Brazil (see also the drawings attributed to Muche), Africa and the East Indies. Some of Schmalkalden's figures are comparable to those in the present Beeckman group and in the Paris album (Joost, op. cit., pp. 101 and 128, and 99 respectively), and could well have been based on the same prototypes.

The watercolours attributed to Heinrich Muche (1649-after 1696) include an important group of six full-length figures of Brazilian Mestizos, Tapuyas and Africans. These are based on the famous pictures by Albert Eeckhout (active circa 1610-1665), commissioned by Prince Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, Governor-General of Dutch Brazil in 1637-44, now in the Etnografisk Samling of the Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen (P. Whitehead, M. Boeseman, A portrait of Dutch 17th Century Brazil, Amsterdam, 1989, pp. 269-76, illustrated). Copies after the pictures of a Tupinamba couple from the Eeckhout group by a lesser hand are also included in the lot. A number of other contemporary copies after Eeckhout's pictures are known: the somewhat clumsy woodcuts for Historia naturalis Brasiliae, published at the expense of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen in 1648, the watercolours in the Thierbuch of Johan Maurits's butler Zacharias Wagener (1614/6-1668) in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden, and those by Brownover in the Locke album (Whitehead, Boeseman, op.cit., illustrated pp. 235, 257-60 and 285-7 respectively). Some also appear in the album of Schmalkalden (Joost, op. cit). There are discrepancies in the various copies, making it difficult to decide which are based on the Eeckhout pictures (done in Holland), which on the preliminary Eeckhout studies (now lost), and which on other copies.
Muche was a soldier with the V.O.C. in 1670-83, active in the East Indies and Japan, and is known to have returned to his native Breslau in 1696. The attribution to him is based on comparison to the handling of the figures and landscape in drawings in the Museum fr Völkerkunde, Berlin (cf. Van der Waals, op. cit., p. 160, fig. 135, and Haks, Maris, op. cit., p. 410, figs. C24-5). These were apparently copied after Muche's drawings in an album now lost, Variae figurae nationum indiarum orientalium atque animalium... (H. Nevermann, 'Berichte eines Schlesiers ber Indonesien am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts', Baessler-Archiv, Beiträge zur Völkerkunde, Berlin, 1956, IV, pp. 91-104), while the present drawings are by a better hand.
Among the further drawings attributed to Muche is one of a 'Beniaens Prister' by an altar, copied from M. Colijn's Den Oost-Indische Navigatie, Amsterdam, 1617, p. 52a, illustrated as Chinese. The African family is copied after an engraving in T. Herbert, A relation of some yeares travaile.., London, 1634, p. 17, as is D. in the present lot.
The watercolours in L. are attributed to the author of the Berlin drawings copying Muche (see above). Some figures are related to drawings by Beeckman in Paris (Scalliet, op. cit., figs. 12, 15-6), or could alternatively have been copied from the same prototypes.
The first seven watercolours in M. are based on engravings by Joannes van Doetechum for Jan Huygen van Linschoten's Itenerario of 1595.
Lot N. includes an example of the first Japanese printed bookplates of circa 1600, possibly from Kyoraku-han, while also the other leaves and the textile would seem to be early 17th Century.

We are grateful to Roelof van Gelder for supplying a number of reference works. His Het Oost-Indisch avontuur - Duitsers in dienst van de VOC, was published by Sun, Nijmegen, 1997.

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