Commercial Visions

Science, Trade, and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age

Dániel Margócsy

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780226117881
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

Entrepreneurial science is not new; business interests have strongly influenced science since the Scientific Revolution. In Commercial Visions, Dániel Margócsy illustrates that product marketing, patent litigation, and even ghostwriting pervaded natural history and medicine—the "big sciences" of the early modern era—and argues that the growth of global trade during the Dutch Golden Age gave rise to an entrepreneurial network of transnational science.Margócsy introduces a number of natural historians, physicians, and curiosi in Amsterdam, London, St. Petersburg, and Paris who, in their efforts to boost their trade, developed modern taxonomy, invented color printing and anatomical preparation techniques, and contributed to philosophical debates on topics ranging from human anatomy to Newtonian optics. These scientific practitioners, including Frederik Ruysch and Albertus Seba, were out to do business: they produced and sold exotic curiosities, anatomical prints, preserved specimens, and atlases of natural history to customers all around the world. Margócsy reveals how their entrepreneurial rivalries transformed the scholarly world of the Republic of Letters into a competitive marketplace.Margócsy's highly readable and engaging book will be warmly welcomed by anyone interested in early modern science, global trade, art, and culture.

NOTES

CHAPTER ONE

1. “Zu Abkou hielten wir auch ein wenig, und kamen endlich um ellf Uhr Mittags nach Amsterdam, fünfhalb kleine Meilen, da wir up den nieuwen Dyck in gen grooten Kaysershoff of het wapen van Embden by myn Heer Henckel wohl einkehrten.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, II/414. The various, excerpted, English translations of Uffenbach from the early twentieth century are untrustworthy and should not be consulted.

2. “Den 20 May Dienstag Morgens waren wir [. . .] in Nic. Vischers Konst en Caertwynckel, in welchem mein Bruder sehr viele schöne Kupferstich von alten Meistern um billigen Preiss kauffte. [. . .] Nachmals waren wir in einem Winckel oder Laden op de nieuwen Dyck gegen unserm Wirthshaus dem grooten Kaysershof über. Es stehet über der Thüre: Alderhande rariteyten te Koop.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, II/416–17.

3. “Eine schöne Andromedam von Erz Ellenßhoch bote er vor hundert Holländische Gulden, einem Herculem von Stein siebenzehen Gulden.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, II/417.

4. In this volume, I apply the slightly anachronistic umbrella term of science to describe the various modes of early modern knowledge-making practices that included practical mathematics, natural philosophy, natural history, medicine, among others. For those involved in such practices, I use the term scientific practitioner. For a defense of using a similar terminology, see Harkness, The Jewel House, xvii. On the Uffenbach brothers, see Bennett, “Shopping for Instruments”; Unverfehrt, Zeichnungen von Meisterhand; and on their Dutch visit especially Van de Roemer, “Neat Nature.” For their social status in Frankfurt as members of the Frauenstein Society, see Soliday, A Community in Conflict, 90.

5. On Merian, see Kinukawa, Art Competes with Nature; Kinukawa, “Natural History as Entrepreneurship”; Davis, Women on the Margins; Wettengl, Maria Sibylla Merian; Reitsma, Merian and Daughters.

6. “Sie ist bey zwey und sechzig Jahr alt, aber noch gar munter, und eine sehr höfliche manierliche Frau, sehr künstlich in Wasserfarben zu mahlen, und gar fleissig.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/553.

7. Rumphius, D’Amboinsche rariteitkamer. For a modern, annotated edition, see Rumphius, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet.

8. For a discussion of salaries and wages, see Soltow and Van Zanden, Income and Wealth Inequality, 44.

9. On Schijnvoet’s chests, see Van de Roemer, “Neat Nature”; for an extended discussion of Schijnvoet, see also Van de Roemer, “De geschikte natuur.”

10. On the topic of finance and aesthetics, see Margócsy, “The Fuzzy Metrics of Money.”

11. “Auf diesem Stück verrichtet der berühmte Anatomicus Tulpius die Section. Hievor soll ein noch lebender Burgermeister allhier tausend thaler geboten haben, wie es dann gewiß gar schön.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/546.

12. On the cultures of museums, collecting, and curiosities in the Netherlands, see Kistemaker and Bergvelt, De wereld binnen handbereik; Bergvelt, Jonker, and Wiechmann, Schatten in Delft; Jorink, Reading the Book of Nature, ch. 5; Cook, Matters of Exchange. For a European overview, see Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature; Impey and Macgregor, The Origins of Museums; Pomiań, Collectors and Curiosities; Schnapper, Collections et collectionneurs; Findlen, Possessing Nature; Smith and Findlen, Merchants and Marvels; Evans and Marr, Curiosity and Wonder; Bleichmar and Mancall, Collecting across Cultures; Collet, Die Welt in der Stube.

13. Cook, Matters of Exchange, 277; Jorink, personal communication, June 21, 2012.

14. Scheller, “Rembrandt en de encyclopedische kunstkamer.”

15. “Er prahlte ungemein, und indem er uns seinse Sachen zeigte, thate er wie ein Marktschreyer, und sagte alle Augenblicke: Sicht der Herr, etc.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/621.

16. On Rachel Ruysch, see Berardi, Science into Art.

17. “Dannenhero ist nicht genug zu bewunderen, wie er die viele praeparata so mühsam zusammen bringen, und meistentheils selbst machen können.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/639.

18. The exact price was three ducatons; one ducaton was worth five guilders three stuivers. Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/640.

19. “Dieses aber schiene uns nicht naturlich zu seyn, wie denn auch herr Rau versicherte, daß seine Sachen vielfältig mit Farbe und Firniß überstrichen seyen.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/641.

20. The treatment to prevent such mishaps involved coating with oil of turpentine the case in which the butterflies were held, as Uffenbach learned from Adam de Berghe in Delft. Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/336.

21. On the problems of preserving fish color, see Fallours, Poissons, écrevisses et crabes; for a new edition see Samuel Fallours, Tropical Fishes of the East Indies.

22. On color printing in natural history, see Kusukawa, Picturing the Book of Nature; Nickelsen, “Botanists, Draughtsmen and Nature.”

23. As chapter 6 reveals, Le Blon’s idea did not fully succeed in practice. On this point, see also Leonhard and Felfe, Lochmuster und Linienspiel, 54.

24. “Herr le Blond machte noch ein groß Geheimniß daraus, und sagte, das wäre vor grosse Herren, die ihme die Erfindung, ehe er sie gemein machte, wohl bezahlen müßten.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/535. For the translation, see Lilien, Jacob Christoph Le Blon, 22.

25. Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, III/655.

26. On the topic of early modern commerce and science, see Cook, Matters of Exchange; Smith and Findlen, Merchants and Marvels; Huigen, De Jong, and Kolfin, The Dutch Trading Companies; Freedberg, “Science, Commerce and Art”; Schiebinger, Plants and Empire; Schiebinger and Swan, Colonial Botany; Smith, The Business of Alchemy; for an overview of more recent developments, see Shapin, The Scientific Life; Andersen, Bek-Thomsen, and Kjaergaard, “The Money Trail.”

27. “Wenn es nur etwas neues bekommt, lässet er es sogleich in Kupfer stechen, und dedicirt es auf Englische Art [. . .], Einheimischen und Fremden, davor man ihm ein paar Guineen geben muß, wie mir D. Rarger und andere, so auch damit incommodirt worden, geklaget.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, II/594. On Petiver’s strategies, see Delbourgo, “Listing People.”

28. “Er bietet allen Fremden, so zu ihm kommen, ein Exemplar von seinem Muscho an, die er sich aber gar theuer bezahlen lässet.” Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen, II/583.

29. Daston, “The Ideal and the Reality of the Republic of Letters”; Goldgar, Impolite Learning; Grafton, “A Sketch Map of a Lost Continent”; see also the whole iss...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• I. Baron von Uffenbach Goes on a Trip: The Infrastructure of International Science
• II. Shipping Costs, the Exchange of Specimens, and the Development of Taxonomy
• III. Image as Capital: Forging Albertus Seba’s Thesaurus
• IV. Anatomical Specimens in the Republic of Letters: Scientific Publications as Marketing Tools
• V. Commercial Epistemologies: The Anatomical Debates of Frederik Ruysch and Govard Bidloo
• VI. Knowledge as Commodity: The Invention of Color Printing
• VII. Peter the Great on a Shopping Spree
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index