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Achttiende Eeuw 40 (2008) nr.1
Themanummer 'Ger-Manie'
Rietje van Vliet
‘De kortstondige carrière van Johan Hendrik Munnikhuizen als Übersetzungs- Fabricant’
The article presents the Hague bookseller Johan Hendrik Munnikhuizen (1736-ca. 1803) as a case-study of Dutch publishers who anticipated the Ger-mania which from the 1760s held the Dutch reading-public in its grip. The factors leading to Munnikhuizen’s rapid successes as a bookseller are examined; one important factor being that he spoke and wrote German fluently, and knew many a German enlightened theologian thanks to his Lutheran background. For the Dutch translation of Johan Bonkel, which was based on the German edition containing many neological passages, the publisher had to enter into correspondence with his famous German colleague Friedrich Nicolai. He did not approach him directly, but sought the mediation of the German banker Theodor Gülcher. It is unclear what caused Munnikhuizen to exit his publishing career as fast as he had entered upon it. The combination of a possible shortage of business talent, an unsound financial basis and competition from a growing group of German publishers who had settled in Germany, must have been his undoing.
Paul Knolle
‘Duitse schilders in de Hollandsche school. Hun komst, verblijf en reputatie 1680-1820’
During the eighteenth century, at least forty to fifty German painters came to The Netherlands to study and to find work. Several of them, like the portraitist Jan Maurits Quinhard and the painter of portraits and genre pieces Willem Laquy. were highly successful. Quinkhard even put, with Cornelis Troost, his stamp upon Dutch portraiture. On the basis of the artists’ biographies published by Arnold Houbraken (in 1718-1721), Johan van Gool (1750-1751) and Roeland van Eynden en Adriaan van der Willigen (1816-1840), this phenomenon is researched. The artists were inspired by the traditional cultural contacts between several German principailities and the Low Countries, the high quality and reputation of Dutch art and the prosperous art market, the rich private art collections and the high level of art education of the neighbouring country. Many of these German immigrants came from areas not far from The Netherlands, but painters also left Berlin, Hannover, Heilbronn, Erfurt, Dessau, Mannheim and Mainz. Most of them went to Amsterdam, where around 1700 Gerard de Lairesse proved to be a favourite teacher, because of the taste he represented and his educational capacities. Many German painters stayed for a long period, worked hard for the Dutch art market and became respected citizens. In particular Van Eynden and Van der Willigen considered several of them to form part of the Dutch school, which may seem strange considering the fact that during the second half of the eighteenth century national sensitivity had grown fast. In this article, some explanations for their point of view are suggested.
Annemieke Kouwenberg
‘‘De kennis der Duitsche taal is, derhalven, voor een Geleerden, hedendaags onontbeerlijk.’ De Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen en Felix Meritis als bemiddelaars tussen de Nederlandse en Duitse wetenschappen’
According to the around 5000 translations from German into Dutch, German literature, science, philosophy and so on were quite popular in the Netherlands between 1750 and 1840. It seems obvious that these translations influenced the Dutch public debate on these subjects; in magazines and especially learned and cultural societies, the effects of this German input may be found. Searching the archives of two Dutch societies (the learned society Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen and the Amsterdam cultural society Felix Meritis) to trace the interest in German science, we learn that the societies were not quite as receptive as we might have supposed. More interestingly, both societies showed quite different approaches in dealing with international contacts and scientific input. Whereas for the Hollandsche Maatschappij the German contacts and scientific input were only one of the many options, Felix Meritis used the German link to realize its scientific ambitions. According to the attention the society got from scientists and travellers, Felix Meritis was quite succesful in doing so. The differences between both societies reveal the possibilities societies had in handling the international context of their activities.
Bettina Noak
‘Verhullen en ontsluieren. Christoph Martin Wielands gratia-theorie in de Brieven over verscheide onderwerpen van Rhijnvis Feith’
This article discusses the intellectual relationship between Christoph Martin Wieland (1733-1813) and Rheinvis Feith (1753-1824). It shows that the Dutch writer was very well acquainted with the aesthetic conception of grace (Grazie) used by the German author. In his Brieven over verscheiden onderwerpen (Letters on different topics, 6 vls, 1784-1793) Feith frequently quotes Wieland to confirm his own arguments. Nevertheless Feith cannot be described as a mere epigone of Wieland. He uses his ideas in a very creative way to develop a critical attitude towards the rules of courtly communication which he considered immoral. Feith connects the requirements of a more natural and subjective communication between individuals with his dedication to aesthetic and moral values and the welfare of his fatherland.
J.W.H. Konst
‘De laat-achttiende-eeuwse Weense vertaling van de lyriek van Jacobus Bellamy (1757-1786)’
This article discusses an anonymous German translation of the works of Jacobus Bellamy (1757-1786), published in 1790-1791 by the Viennese publisher Ignaz Alberti (Ignatius Albertus): J. Bellamy’s Gedichte. The central question is wether or not the relatively unknown poet Theobald Wilhelm Broxtermann (1771-1800) could have been the translator.
Thomas von der Dunk
‘Inkognito aber Stadtbekannt: Joseph II. auf Reisen in Holland’
In the centuries before the French Revolution, monarchs mostly stayed at home to govern their realm. Seldom did they leave their palaces to visit remote provinces and meet their subjects. In the era of the Enlightenment, this habit changed. One important example was Joseph II of Hapsburg, Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 till 1790.
In the summer of the year 1781 he made his first and last trip to the Austrian-governed Southern Netherlands. A week-long visit through the Dutch Republic was part of the trip. To his regret there was no opportunity to cross the North Sea and have a look at England too. Joseph officially travelled incognito, under the alias of Count of Falkenstein, but it was universally known that he was travelling around. Naturally, as soon as he arrived anywhere, rumours started and curious crowds turned up at his window. This had already happened to him in Belgium, where he had fled the public several times through a backdoor.
A report on Joseph’s tour, in a small booklet, appeared that very year in both Dutch and French. It shows that the emperor planned to combine personal interest with political purposes. He stayed in Rotterdam, Delft, The Hague, Leiden, Haarlem, Zaandam and Amsterdam, and visited a lot of well-known cultural and social institutions that were contemporary tourist attractions, like the Academy and Hortus in Leiden, Czar Peter’s cottage in Zaandam and the shipyards and warehouses of Amsterdam; he also made an excursion to the village of Broek-in-Waterland, of which the scrubbed pavements represented Dutch cleanliness to foreign nations. Here, he painfully faced the fact that his interest as an emperor in the living conditions of his subjects did not imply the interest of said subjects in his visit. They had more important matters to attend to.
But apart from personal interests, there was of course also the political agenda. On his trip to The Hague, Joseph II paid a visit to the stadholder and his most important advisor, the Fat Duke of Brunswick; in Amsterdam he did meet the mighty mayor Joachim Rendorp. In the year 1781 the Republic was at war with England; Austria was at that time allied with England’s Erbfeind, France. On basis of the Treaty of Westphalia, The Hague still blocked the Scheldt river, and when Joseph II was in Antwerp, the city council petitioned to the emperor to have the lifeline of the town reopened. So, Joseph II had a lot to discuss behind the closed doors of the Binnenhof and the Town Hall of Amsterdam.
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