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Jan Albert Sichterman. A Groninger Nabob and Art-collector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Christiaan J.A. Jörg
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Extract

In 1773 the director of the VOC factory in Canton, A.F. l'Heureux, requested permission from Gentlemen Seventeen to return home. He was already seventy years old and wrote: ‘It is hard and discouraging for an honest and faithful servant to find that Divine Providence had afflicted him with illnesses incurable in these parts… It is hard and discouraging for such a one to find himself deprived of his reward, perhaps the last reward for all his labour And may there not be other reasons that force us, however unwillingly, to quit these lands and the service of Your Excellencies? Are there no ties with our society, no ties forged by nature, or are we tied wholly and solely to the Company?’!.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 1985 , pp. 178 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1985

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References

Notes

1. Rijksarchief, Algemeen, Haag, Den, VOC archive 4411, General Report from Canton to Heren XVII, 12. 20, 1773, fols. 62–63.Google Scholar

2. See for a similar reaction of Dirk van Hogendorp from Bengal: Lequin, F., Het personeel van de Verenigde Oost-lndische Compagnie in Azië in de achttiende eeuw, meer in het bijzonder in de vestiging Bengalen, 2 vols., thesis Leiden University, Leiden 1982, p. 156. I like to thank Frank Lequin for the generous way in which he shared his information on SichtermanGoogle Scholar.

3. Lequin, o.c., p. 156–157 gives a short list of the occupation and position of some repatriates from Bengal.Google Scholar

4. Feith, J.A., “De Bengaalsche Sichterman,”Groningsche Volksalmanak voor het jaar 1914, Groningen 1913, p. 14–74.Google Scholar

5. Lequin, o.c., passim.

6. Feith, o.c, p. 30. The traveldiary of Beckmann has been published by G.VV. Kernkamp in Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Cenootschap, Vol. XXXIII, Amsterdam 1912, p. 311–473. See for the reference p. 443.Google Scholar

7. Furber, H., Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600-1800, Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1981, p. 140.Google Scholar

8. Lequin, o.c, p. 565 and 573, inventory of goods of the deceased J.F. Velters, 05 15, 1749.Google Scholar

9. Lequin, o.c, p. 559.

10. Lequin, o.c, p. 105, 559.

11. Formsma, W.J. a.o., eds., Historie van Croningen Stad en Land, Groningen 1976 p. 710–12.Google Scholar

12. Municipal Archive, Groningen, Requestboek April 27, 1743.

13. Ir. P.L.W. de Vriezé at Groningen is preparing an article on the architectural history of the Sichterman house. I thank him for his kind permission to make us of his annotations.

14. Unfortunately these fragments were not replaced during the recent restoration of the house, see Jorg, C.J.A., Porcelein als handelswaar, thesis Leiden University, Groningen 1978, stelling 10Google Scholar.

15. Municipal Archive, Groningen, Requestboek January 16, 1764.

16. Opregte Croninger Courant, Februar y 17, 21, 24, 28 and March 2, 6, 9 and 13, 1764.

17. Opregte Croninger Courant, March 23, 27, 30 and April 3 and 6, 1764.

18. Opregte Croninger Courant, April 13, 1764, for the sale on April 16.

19. Feith, o.c, p. 52.

20. Opregte Croninger Courant, May 1 an d July 20, 24, 27 and 31, 1764.

21. Opregte Groninger Courant, July 13, 17, 20 and 24, 1764, for the sale on July 24.

22. It was sold for fl. 26,850 including the lacquered hangings and two cabinets of East-Indian wood, see Feith, oc., p. 50.

23. Opregte Groninger Courant, July 31, 1764.

24. Opregte Groninger Courant, August 10, 1764.

25. Feith, o.c., p. 38–39 mentions not two but three cata-logues with handwritten prices in margin. At his time these catalogues were kept at the Rijksarchief Groningen; at present, however, they belong to the University Library in Groningen. The first of these three cataloguees refers to a book sale on 1st May and has been mistakenly identified by Feith as also belonging to the Sichterman household. Consequently his conclusion that Sichterman had a special interest in numismatics, erotica, naturalia and physical instruments cannot be accepted without further confirmation.

26. Thieme-Becker, , Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler, Seemann Verlag, Leipzig, Band X, 1914, p. 275–276.Google Scholar

Philip van Dijk (1680–1753) was portraitist at the court in the Hague, and was as art-dealer influential in forming the collections of Fagel, Van Wassenaer, Van Schuylenburg and Van Dishoek. Perhaps Van Dishoek introduced his Bengalese friend Sichtermann to Van Dijk.

27. Feith, o.c., p. 47.

28. Jourdain, M. and Jenyns, R. Soame.Chinese export art in the eighteenth century, Spring Books, Feltham 1967, p. 33–39.Google Scholar

29. The cupboard set is possibly identical to a set in the Groningen Museum, bequested in 1899 by Mr. Mello Backer, a great-great grandson of Sichterman; see Jorg, C.J.A., Interaction in ceramics. Oriental Porcelain & Delftware, exh. cat. Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong 1984, cat. 57Google Scholar.