The World of Jan Brandes

The world of Jan Brandes, DRAWINGS OF A DUTCH TRAVELLER IN BATAVIA, CEYLON AND SOUTHERN AFRICA Editors Max de Bruijn and Remco Raben Editorial board An Duits Gyorgy NovAky Peter Sigmond Wim Vroom Kees Zandvliet Waanders Publishers Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam the banks of the Kali Besar or Ciliwung, the river scape or to portray the birds in their natural sur- that ran through Batavia. Doubtlessly sharks roundings. - were often caught by fishermen in the coastal From the drawings alone it is difficult to see if waters of the Java Sea, and eaten by the inhabi- these were made from dead birds or from living tants of Batavia. One can imagine the inquisitive specimens. In general, it is very difficult to sketch Brandes, dressed in his black minister's garb, a bird when it is flying around, because it rarely examining and drawing the shark amidst the perches long enough. Brandes had a good eye for fishermen, vendors and bustling crowd on the detail and most of the characteristics of the birds early morning market. in his drawings arecorrectly depicted. He may Probably catches such as these attracted the have drawn birds in nature, or in the aviary or curious inhabitants of the city, and maybe even cage in which they were kept alive. In the majori- the scientifically minded. Apparently Brandes ty of cases, he would have used dead birds for his had some time to make a drawing of the shark studies, however much he tried to give the from different angles and with some precision. impression that they were alive in their natural The description remains rather short, and under- habitat. standably contains no information about the Judging by a rather true-to-nature depiction of shark's behaviour and habitat. What Brandes a swallow in an allegory composed in 1777 and calls 'holes' in the jaws of the shark are of course some notes on the song of finches made in the the gill clefts, of which the hammerhead indeed same period, when he was a minister in Doetin- has five. His drawing can withstand heavy criti- chem, Brandes had already developed some inter- cism even today. Contemporary illustrations, est in drawing and studying birds previous to his such as that of J.F. Blumenbach, whose purpose departure for the Indies.' But clearly his passion was to reproduce good illustrations,are a real dis- fully burgeoned during the sea voyage on the East aster and are based on a stuffed specimen of a Indiaman the Holland. Sitting on the quarterdeck hammerhead with a distorted head.' Brandes ren- Brandes filled pages of his sketchbook with all ders the form of the head and most other details kinds of seagulls and other seabirds to be seen with his customary talent for precision and real- from his ship. ism. The indentures of the fins, even up to the tri- On his arrival in Batavia in 1779, Brandes angular teeth, are realistically represented. already owned a small collection of live birds, S.J. DE GROOT mostly canary birds, which were presented to him by fellow Lutherans at the Cape. In the fol- 1. Smith and Heemstra, Smith's seafishes, 96-97. lowing years he apparently started collecting 2. Blumenbach, Abbildungen naturhistorischer Gegenstande, Indonesian birds too, live as well as stuffed. On lo 99. September 1784, when depositing an amount of money with the Company, Brandes was approached by the cash dispenser, Gijsbert Jacob Welgevaren, who commissioned him to stuff Birds some birds for an unnamed mayor of Amster- INTRODUCTION (PLATES 142-156) dam. He must have known of Brandes' collection or of his - or rather his slaves' - skills in prepara- Brandes had more than just a passing interest in tion. Welgevaren promised him hundred rix-dol- the study of birds. In contrast to the small num- lars for the job and brought him 'three birds of ber of fish and mammals found in the sketch- paradise, two parakeets and two cockatoos' to be books, Brandes depicted about 35 different kinds stuffed. Welgevaren must have supplied more of birds, observed in all the different countries he birds later. Brandes may also have used some visited. He apparently enjoyed looking at the vari- birds from his own collection, as he sent some ous species that could be seen flying around the species which he already had depicted before tak- houses in which he stayed, and studying their ing the assignment, such as the nightjar and the behaviour. The birds in the drawings by Brandes quail (see Plates 144 and 145). In October Brandes can all be identified without too much effort. He listed 21 types, of which he sent some thirty was a good observer of his subjects and he drew stuffed specimens to Holland. All the birds are them faithfully, with the different shades of designated by Dutch names, without further sci- colour and typical postures, oflen accompanied entific classification. It is likely that these lists by a comment on their song. With only few were meant to be studied in conjunction with the exceptions, he did not take the time to add a land- bird specimens, because otherwise it would have age: in October 1786 while at the Cape, Branaes mentions that 'only five are still alive'. A1 Y Brandes used his stay on the estate Vergt o enlarge his collection of stuffed animals, relatlnn- that he stuffed 'some birds for pleasure:'.3 Apart from the dead specimen, he managed t o take a large cockatoo alive to Sweden, where he contin- ued to enjoy its company. We know very little of Rrandes' colbection of stuffed birds, what he collected or how he dis- played the contents of his, presumably small, cabinet of natural history specimens. lIe could have preserved insects and bird skins f lat in a drawer if his mind was purely on scientific pur- suits, but this is unlikely, because in mc ost cases these collections were intended to be admired and enjoyed. There are no traces of any stuffed birds in the drawings of the interior of his house, or elsewhere, but he may have kept th~ special room. After Brandcs settled in his friend Sven Tngemar Ljung wrote to rromsur Carl Peter Thunberg in Uppsala about the collection. In 1798 he stated that Brandes 1lad a good selection of birds and that he himse~rlPlnaa I received 54 'Chinese birds' from him.4 Many of these srnallcr private collections chang;ed hands after the owner's death. If the specimei'IS were auctioned, somc kind of record may h: tve been compiled of the contents in the sales cs ~talogue. Many, however, were dispersed by other means and we wiII never know who nwned wl iat, or wh:Y. That seems to have been the case with Brandes' 1;Lo Birds seenfrorn theEast been very difficult to be sure which species was cabinet, although the more important ilLlliJ,I1RC Indiaman Holland, 1778. indicated by a certain name. the birds from China, couJd have been given to Water-calour over sketch in During the same months he was working for Ljung at some stage. Ljung's bird collet:tion was >C\ - -*.. pencil, Rijlzsmuseum Welgevaren, Brandes purchased several cocka- bought by Gustaf von Paykull(1757-18~~,.,, ~f 111dl- Amsterdam, inv.nr. toos to keep as domestic pets. ln one of his draw- shall at the Swedish court, who eventually donat NG-19827.1-20. ings showing the interior ofthe living room in his ed his extensive collection of natural h istory LA La---* home near Batavia, we see them on perches sus- specimens to the Swedish authorities, LU neLurltt. pended from the wall or from the ceiling (see the foundation of the Riksmuseet in Stockholm. Plate 28). Notably, he paid a considerable amount It is just possible that one or more specimens of oFrnaney for these birds, about twenty rix-dol- birds once owned by Brandes may stiIl be in this lars. Normally a frugal man who seldom indulged institution. Ljung himself specialized in insects in personal Iuxury items, Rrandes had probably and other small animals, many of whic,h were lat ,T n ' spent some of the money he had earned by Wel- er sold to the University of Lund and to ttne ~v~usc- gevaren's commission. urn of Comparative Zoology in Cambr idge, It is possible that Brandes also had an aviary in Mass.5 or near his house. There is another of his sketches Tjung carefully examined the animal drawlngs showing a row of bird cages.' Although this may made by Brandes and wrote the scienti fic name on each of them. AIthough he may hav e suspect- have been a design for a kind of box in which to .. transport live birds on board a ship, it at least ed quite quickly that a few represented blrds were shows that Rrandes was engaged in keeping a as yet unknown to science, he did not rush into number of live birds. When he left Batavia, Bran- print. He took his time, maybe to ensure that he des tried to take some of his live birds back to was correct by studying other books andarticles Europe. Most of them did not survive the sea voy- on similar subjects. Ljung was a carefit1 worker. Out of fourteen papers that he wrote for scientific so to eat their prey. The bird in the drawing looks journals in Sweden, there are three about birds quite life-like, but of course Brandes could well from Java, illustrated with monochrome plates have sketched it after it was caught, because he based on the sketches by Brandes.

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