Page 46 - La Naturaleza como inspiración

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The Natural History Collection
of Johannes le Francq van Berkhey
Ma Pilar de San Pío Aladrén
Chief Curator of the Archives of the Real Jardín Botánico (1991–2010)
Johannes le Francq van Berkhey (Leiden, 1729– 1812) was a man with numerous intellectual inter- ests: a physician, draughtsman and painter, a writer and poet, professor of Natural History, a collector, and a committed and prominent political activist. Son of Evert le Francq, a wool merchant, and Mar- ia Berkhey, whose father was an art dealer, he had contacts with the world of antiques, painting, draw- ing, engraving and books from an early age through his grandfather’s business. This undoubtedly awak- ened his interest in art and literature, and his strong interest in collecting.
His early years, to 1741, were spent at a French boarding school in Katwijk, near Leiden. In 1746 he began working as a pharmacy assistant. Having been interested in natural history since his youth, he en- rolled at the University of Leiden in 1747, after com- pleting Latin and Greek studies. At that time he al- ready had a zoological library that attracted the attention of Professor J. Allamand, who later became his patron. In May 1753 Allamand hired him as an assistant and “curator of the collections of specimens and natural curiosities” of the university, a post he held for the next eight years. Professor Allamand en- couraged him to study medicine. He received his doctorate on 12 December 1760 for his thesis on plant taxonomy, Expositio characteristica structurae florum qui dicuntur compositi cum figuris ad naturam expres-
sis, which studied the family of flowering plants, or angiosperms, referred to as Compositae.1 The thesis, which was published in 1761, included a poem dedi- cated to the University of Leiden and eight very high- quality copper engravings annotated auctor ad vivum delin. – in other words, drawn from life by Berkhey himself, and thus demonstrating his skills as a bo- tanical illustrator.2
While studying medicine he developed an inter- est in literature, particularly poetry, and became a member of literary groups of the period. In 1760 he published the pastoral poem Het Bataafsch Athene, which was dedicated to the city of Leiden and the university’s professor of Botany, Adriaan van Royen, of whom he was a fervent follower.
He married and had three children. When his marriage failed in 1750, he left Leiden and his fam- ily and moved to Amsterdam with a new partner, with whom he would have seven more children. There he worked mainly as a physician, although he continued to combine this activity with literature. His first play, Claudius Civilis, was published in 1764, with a preface showing his preference for po- ems glorifying the nation.
In 1764 van Berkhey moved to a country house in Warmond, near Leiden, where he began what is unquestionably the most important and well-known of his works: Natuurlyke historie van Holland (“Nat-