Portrait Medallion of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange (1584-1647)

Entry

At the onset of the seventeenth century, the Dutch instituted commercial whaling on Spitsbergen Island, chiefly to produce whale oil. Initially, a by-product of this activity was large quantities of baleen, the plates lining the mouths of baleen whales, resembling the material horn. The company charged with coordinating the Dutch whale catch, the Noordsche Compagnie, hired the Englishman John Osborn (c. 1581-c. 1634), an Amsterdam-based ivory and horn carver (kokermaker), to investigate new applications for this lightweight, elastic material with vast potential, also given its thermoplastic properties.¹ Despite heavy competition, Osborn managed to obtain three patents on new methods of processing baleen, granted by the States General between 1618 and 1630. Among these was a technique for pressing baleen, after preparation and heating, into metal moulds. The material’s fine structure resulted in a highly precise, relatively strong and flexible impression that retained its dark colour. Osborn himself applied this technique chiefly to making portrait medallions and figurative reliefs.² Reporting on baleen’s innovative use, the surgeon and historian Claes van Wassenaer avidly praised its properties in his Historisch Verhael from 1624.³

With the expiration of Osborn’s patents, and likely even before that, other artisans began to take advantage of his discovery. One such individual was the renowned Amsterdam ebony carver Herman Doomer (c. 1595-1650), who, together with his son, obtained a patent for a technique for pressing baleen in 1641.⁴ Because of its dark hue and high gloss, baleen could easily pass for, and be combined with ebony. A closer examination reveals that many of Doomer’s ebony furniture pieces, miniature chests and mirror or picture frames (BK-1978-188) were furnished with decorative panels in pressed baleen.⁵ In the end, however, this uniquely Dutch application never flourished and soon fell out of favour, most likely due to the excessive, time-consuming process it required.⁶ As in other countries, baleen continued for centuries to be a favoured material used to reinforce umbrellas, corsets, dresses, shirt collars and other clothing items.

John Osborn undoubtedly produced large quantities of pressed-baleen medallions and reliefs during his lifetime, but as far as is known he left the making of designs and models to others. According to archival documentation, for this task he turned to the goldsmith Johannes Lutma and his brother, the silversmith Joost Lutma, as well as the escutcheon carver Trowest (?) Simons and others.⁷ From each model, Osborn made casts of a positive and a negative mould. Using an iron press – like a stamp press operated by means of a large screw – the baleen was subsequently pressed between the two moulds.

Bearing the portrait of Stadholder Frederick Henry on its obverse, the present medallion’s attribution to John Osborn is based on comparable pieces with the impressed inscription Joh. Osborn Angl. Amsterod. fecit 1626 on the reverse.⁸ Typically, these medallions are accompanied by a pendant portrait of Amalia van Solms, Frederick Henry’s spouse.⁹ The Amsterdam Museum holds one such portrait pair in its collection, uniquely furnished with larger, integrally pressed baleen oval frames.¹⁰ The same museum also possesses a round baleen-pressed portrait medallion of Prince Maurice framed in an integrally pressed frame with ripple moulding.¹¹

Frederiks convincingly attributed the models for Frederick Henry’s and Amalia’s baleen portraits to Johannes Lutma (c. 1584-1669, active in Amsterdam from 1621 on). Virtually identical metal pendants bearing the portraits of the stadholder couple – executed in bronze (NG-VG-20-162), lead (NG-VG-1-4360 and -4361) and silver (Koninklijke Verzamelingen, The Hague) – are also known by him.¹² For these portraits, Lutma consulted Willem Jacobsz Delff’s engravings after Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt (RP-P-1898-A-20686 and RP-P-1898-A-20693). According to Muller, the metal plaquettes were made with the same moulds used to make the baleen impressions.¹³ Supported by Frederiks, Forrer instead correctly determined that baleen impressions were used to make new moulds (surmoulages) in which Osborn’s maker’s mark was effaced, to be used for the production of these metal medallions. In some instances, the original oval form has been changed to a round form, occasionally with orange branches added to the composition at the bottom.¹⁴ Because the metal shrinks during the firing, the metal portraits are smaller than their baleen equivalents, a difference of up to 4 millimetres.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025