Little artists and libertines, or Recent acquisitions section updated (July 22)

In our May 20 newsletter we introduced to you Monsieur Evert, a little man without hands and feet, who could write more beautiful than anyone, dance a Polish Dance, and cut paper and bread with his mouth. That he was a true artist you can now see for yourself at our website, because we have uploaded one of his drawings to the Recent acquisitions section. It is one of 30 interesting items you can find there!

In the past two months we have also unearthed some additional information on the life of this remarkable man. We now know that he was born as Jacobus Joannes Evert in 1735 in the German city of Brandenburg, without hands and feet, and that he died in Malines, where he was buried on July 30, 1789, in the Sint-Pieters en Pauluskerk. In between he married Catharina Gertrudis Gentkin from Stolp, made a living from the sale of his drawings, and converted from Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism. We also discovered that the inn De Roode Leeuw at the Vismarkt, mentioned in the broadsheet we presented in our earlier newsletter, was located in Malines as well.
The allegorical and devotional pen drawing we now offer for sale was made within ten days, with a pen Monsieur Evert cut with his mouth. Below the religious imagery the artist has depicted himself, sitting on a table with writing utensils and smiling contentedly, so it seems. A full description of this exceptional piece of art can be found here.

In our newsletter of July 7 we discussed the slave rebellion in Haiti (1791-1804), highlighting the exciting story of the black slave Adonis and his master d’Herouville by Jean-Baptiste Picquenard. In today’s newsletter we like to return to the only successful slave revolution in history. New in our online inventory is St. Domingo, of het land der zwarten in Hayti en deszelfs omwenteling, the first Dutch translation of An historical account of the black empire in Hayti by Marcus Rainsford (ca. 1750-1805). The author was a British soldier who served for many years in the West Indies. He became an admirer of the former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture, the most important leader in the Haitian Revolution, when he visited Haiti in 1799. The present work contains a history of Haïti and an account of the uprising in August 1791 and the subsequent war that eventually lasted until 1804 when the country gained its independence. The book includes the first known representations of L’Ouverture and Chapter V is wholly devoted to the life of the illustrious black leader who was executed by the French in 1803.

Engravings of a more intimate nature can be found in a work that, according to its title page, was printed for ‘the aficionado’. They were made by the author and were meant to teach his fiancé, the charming Charlotte, how to ‘embrace’. This thrilling little book, De belydenis van een lichtmis (‘The confessions of a libertine’), was written by a certain Karel, an expert in embracing and a ‘great lover of women’ who was asked by his wife-to-be to tell her all about his previous exploits. Subsequently, he tells in full detail about his adventures with Emiliana, the little nun Pelagia, a mother and a daughter, two cousins, and a host of other females. If Charlotte ever got to the end of this extremely rare book, there cannot have been anything that she did not know about how to best please her Karel.

Please enjoy exploring the Recent acquisitions section of our website where you can find these and 27 other items, including an interesting description of Curaçao, beautiful views of Bergen op Zoom, Utrecht and Vreeland, and a seventeenth-century French sonnet in praise of the Queen of Poland.