Japanese Soldiers Halting a Japanese Peasant Couple

Entry

The present sheet represents an exotic scene of a mounted soldier menacing a pair of peasants while a second soldier appears to mediate. Judging from faces and attire, the scene takes place in Asia, and the couple carrying their harvest are identified as peasants by an autograph inscription (‘dit sijn boeren’). There were probably more inscriptions, corresponding to the numbers spread over the sheet, which mark such details as armour and weapons to agricultural tools and which must have corresponded to a lost legend.

The drawing was inventoried as an illustration for a geographical opus (‘aardrijkskundig werk’), with the peasant figures considered to be Chinese. Wilson accepted the attribution, described the figures as ‘Four Oriental Soldiers’ and assumed the design to relate to one of the artist’s major illustrative projects, 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).¹ However, no corresponding print has been identified. Was the drawing a rejected design for this publication, or, given its large format compared to the printed illustrations (c. 190 x 290 mm), might it have been an independent work?

Romeyn de Hooghe’s work as an illustrator of travel accounts is further documented by a group of 105 ‘Chinese drawings’ given to Romeyn de Hooghe in the 1736 Van Huls sale, a group to which the present sheet may well have belonged. These designs were described as preparatory for etchings in the ‘Voyages de Dapper, Nieuhoff, Kircherus, &c.’, that is, 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), to which the museum’s inv. no. RP-T-1941-21 is related, Het Gezantschap der Nederlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, aan den Grooten Tartarischen Chan, (‘The embassy of the Dutch East India Company to the great Tartar Khan’; Amsterdam 1665) of Joan Nieuhof (1618-1672); or Toonneel van China (‘Theatre of China’; Amsterdam 1668) by Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680).

Yet the figures depicted in the drawing are not necessarily Chinese. In fact, they more closely resemble types found in travelogues on Japan. The major contemporary book on Japan was the Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen der Oost-Indische Maetschappy [...] aen de Kaisaren van Japan by Arnoldus Montanus (1625-1683), published by Jacob van Meurs (?-1679) in Amsterdam in 1669. Although not based on first-hand experience, it addressed material collected by members of the VOC who travelled Japan in 1643-50.² An illustration on page 65 shows soldiers carrying a sort of strapped basket like the foot soldier in the present sheet. Similar types of clothing, footwear, saddles and tools are seen in other illustrations, as is the distinctive hairstyle of the fishermen found on page 54, which Montanus described as being similar to that of monks, ‘the fishermen wear a bald crown with the hair hanging around their heads like a fringe, not unlike the shorn monks of the papacy’ (‘De visschers dragen een kaele kruin alleenlijk hangt ‘t hair rondom ‘t hoofd kroons-gewijs, niet ongelijk de geschooren monniken in ’t pausdom’).] De Hooghe contributed at least one drawn design for an illustration in Montanus’s book, The Dutch Legate Entering the Temple of Daibot in the Special Collections, Universiteit Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-AW-1150),³ and there might well have been others. This would imply a date of circa 1668-69 for the present sheet, as Montanus and Van Meurs received their material in 1668.⁴ The unusual type of watermark – used in Portugal and Spain in the mid-1660s – may suggest that De Hooghe made it while already in Paris.⁵

There are certainly are stylistic analogies to authentic drawings by the artist from this early period in his career. Inv. no. RP-T-1942-8, carried out by 1671, features similar broad brushstrokes and deep accents along the contours. The delicate hatching in the peasants’ faces and the nervously drawn contours are comparable to traits in inv. no. RP-T-00-332 from 1688. Moreover, the fragmentary inscription on the present drawing may by the hand of Romeyn de Hooghe and can be compared to that on inv. no. RP-T-1942-8 or other samples of his handwriting. Despite this, there are a few anatomical weaknesses, such as the crooked fingers of the female peasant and of the standing soldier, each holding a staff in almost the same stance, or the overly short right arm of the male peasant, apparently lacking a forearm, though these do not exclude an attribution to him.⁶

Annemarie Stefes, 2019