Egbert van Heemskerk's "Quaker Meeting"

No. 1 Heemskerk's "Quaker Meeting" : the London Version of Bowles's Engraving (Friends House, London) HEEMSKERK'S "QUAKER MEETING"17 EGBERT van HEEMSKERK'S "QUAKER MEETING" By William I. Hull Ut m iHE Quaker Meeting" is the name of an oil painting by I Egbert van Heemskerk, now apparently lost, but preserved in various engravings, imitations and caricatures. It may well be called "the great historic picture of primitive Quakerism." * Among the pictures of the thirty-seven persons represented in it, are supposed to be portraits made from life of a half-dozen of early Quakerism's foremost leaders. If this supposition should prove to be correct, the painting well deserves the characterization quoted above. The early Friends' dislike of having their portraits painted is a cause of much regret in modern Quaker circles, and it has added to the uncertainty which surrounds the few alleged portraits of Fox and Penn, and the apparent lack of portraits of Barclay, Keith, and many other founders of the society. Fortunately, the painters of Holland were both enterprising and skilful, and their interest in the new religious sect led to numerous attempts by them to make it live on canvas. Dutch art has preserved various traits—real and imaginary—of seventeenth-century Quaker costumes and customs, and has bequeathed to us a few portraits of the Quaker leaders. Sir Peter Lely's George Fox, Guérard Rademaker's Willem Sewel, an unknown artist's portrait of James Nayler, and Egbert van Heemskerk's pictures are among the foremost of these.2 Egbert van Heemskerk, as he was known in Holland, or Egbert Heemskerk (Heemskerck, Hemskerke, Hemskirk) as he was known in England, was the son of Egbert van Heemskerk, "the Elder," who was born in Haarlem in 1610, and worked in The Hague from 1663 to 1665, in Amsterdam after 1665, and "later" in London, where he was patronized by Lord Rochester (the friend of William Penn), and where he died in 1680. Horace Walpole 1 Wilfred Whitten, Quaker Pictures, 1892, Series I, p. 19. 2 If Penn's portrait at "the age of twenty-two" (the "Armour Portrait ") is authentic, and especially if it was painted in 1666 by Sir Peter LeIy, who was painting Admiral Sir William Penn's portrait at that time, it is a noteworthy addition to this short but precious list. 18 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION calls him "a buffoon painter," attributes to him "pieces of humour, that is, drunken scenes, Quakers' meetings, wakes, etc.," and says that he was patronized by Lord Rochester, and died in London in 1704, "leaving a son of his profession." 3 Von Wurzbach adds to this information that he painted witches' scenes, ghost-stories, the temptations of Saint Anthony, drinking parties, and "Quaker sermons and worse {Quäkerpredigten und Schlimmeres)." i The historians of painting have confused the works, and even the lives, of the father and son. For example, the son's birth year is given as 1645 (although the father's birth year is given by the same compilers as 1634 !) ; and the father's death year is cited as 1680, 1704, and 1744! The truth appears to be that Egbert the elder was born in Haarlem in 1610, and died in London in 1680 ;5 while Egbert the younger was born in Haarlem in 1645, and died in London in 1704. Egbert the younger's works are characterized as are his father's. "He had much spirit," writes a Dutch historian,6 "and a lively imagination, and delighted in producing wild, whimsical and uncommon subjects, as for example the nocturnal meetings of witches, devils and ghosts, also drinking parties and rural merrymakings "—such as monkeys dressed up and acting like men and women. An earlier English author writes: "He painted drolls after the manner of Brawer,7 which he called 'conversations.' His drunken drolls, his wakes, his quaker-meetings, his sots paradice [sic], and some lewd pieces have been in vogue among the waggish collectors and the lower rank of virtuosi." 8 He was also an engraver, and engraved some portraits, his own among them. As 3 Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England (1762), edition of...