Page 48 - La Naturaleza como inspiración

46 COMPILING THE COLLECTION
In the 18th century, the collections assembled in cabinets of curiosities became more scientific and started to be arranged more systematically. Van Berkhey followed the example of Enlightenment natural history scholars by compiling a series of im- portant collections in this field. He collected books and all types of materials, including a magnificent collection of high-quality drawings and engravings. These were classified systematically in order to il- lustrate the range of species of animals, plants and fossils and thus record the diversity of life.
Since he alone could not paint all the known species – there were already so many of them – he began early on to purchase collections of their rep- resentations in engravings, drawings and plates. His collection expanded to comprise over 7,000 works. He also made around 400 drawings for the collec- tion: 296 drawings, nearly all of animals, in water- colour, Indian ink and lead white, as well as around 100 illustrations of plants, minerals, rocks and cos- tumes. Van Berkhey also collected series of draw- ings of exotic species from Dutch commercial and scientific expeditions, as well as individual paintings and drawings by naturalists and physicians.
His collection is seen as an important testimony of the work conducted over many years to apply pictorial arts and printing techniques to the descrip- tive and comparative study of nature. The older il- lustrations he collected suggest that van Berkhey sought to investigate what naturalist illustration should be like. His collection included some prints by A. Dürer or his studio, as well as first editions, illustrated with woodcuts, by 16th-century natural- ists such as G. Rondelet (1507–1566), K. Gessner (1516–1565) and U. Aldrovandi (1522–1605). He also collected intaglio engravings, some of which were painted in watercolour, as was common in the 17th century until the invention of four-colour printing and lithography in the 18th century.
Portada del inventario de la colección Van Berkhey, 1786. Museo de Ciencias Naturales, csic, Madrid.
Voorblad van het overzicht van Van Berkhey, 1786. Museo de Ciencias Naturales, csic, Madrid.
Cover of inventory of Van Berkhey Collection, 1786. Museo de Ciencias Naturales, csic, Madrid.
As noted previously, three catalogues were print- ed for the sale of his collection. The first catalogue covered the library; the second comprised drawings, engravings and illustrations of plants, animals, min- erals, rocks and fossils; and the third covered the other items in the collection. The catalogues had title pages in Dutch and Latin that were very differ- ent from each other.
Translated from Dutch into English, the title of the second catalogue would be First catalogue of the extensive systematic natural history collection formed by drawings, engravings and illustrations of all types of classes of plants and animals, assembled in passe- partout, arranged according to their systematic rank, carefully adapted to the same size as the atlas plate, and presented in over 160 folders with special covers, collected, prepared and classified by order over a pe- riod of nearly forty years. Johannes le Francq van Berkhey is cited as the author, but the names of six intermediaries with commercial activities in Am- sterdam are also stated.
This 200-page catalogue was published in Am- sterdam in 1784. In the introduction van Berkhey explains that the description of the collection was an arduous task that required a great deal of pa- tience and that he had attempted to follow “a sort of systematic order” or, more specifically, to prepare “an orderly collection of drawings and engravings”, as he believed there was no other systematically classified collection anywhere else. He also ex- plained how the collection was formed: “As of that time, I acquired as many works of different authors