Samuel Iperusz. Wiselius
Encyclopedia
Samuel Iperusz, Knight
Wiselius (4 February 1769 – 15 May 1845) was a successful Dutch
lawyer and a prominent Patriot
and democrat, involved in the dismantling of the Dutch East India Company
(VOC) and the negotiations over the Cape
. Wiselius was a witty, Voltairian
spirit with political views far ahead of his time who would end his days writing dramas on Classical themes. ... Wiselius corresponded with nearly all the main players at the time of the Batavian Republic
and it would be impossible to know that period completely without his carefully kept and neatly written correspondence. He was also a poet, historian and superintendent of the police.
, the only son of the oil merchant Iperus Wiselius, himself a Patriot and a captain in the civic guard
, promoted to colonel in May 1787. He grew up on Nieuwezijds Kolk, probably the oldest spot in the city centre. Samuel studied law and classics on the Athenaeum Illustre. In 1786 he travelled to Franeker
, and showed his essay on dismissing the local militia
in 1650 to Johan Valckenaer
and Theodorus van Kooten
, then progressive professors at the local University. Although the article went missing, the friendship remained, when the three took a prominent role in the country's future after the year 1795.
Samuel had to write a new thesis and obtained his doctorate from Leiden
in 1790. He immediately became a lawyer at the Council of Holland, which also served as a court of law. In 1791 Wiselius was the founder of the brotherhood of l'Infanterie des Cinq Sabres ("Infantry of the Five Sabres") at Leiden, a flirtation with freemasonry
. (Mozart
had gained great success that year with his masonically-inspired opera The Magic Flute
). Wiselius moved with his family to Amsterdam in a house at Prinsengracht, across the Noorderkerk
. He had full house in 1793 with three lectures for the society Doctrina et Amicitia in the Kalverstraat
. Wiselius proclaimed that the French Revolution
signalled a radical new beginning. No longer was it necessary to take heed of the heavy burden of the past, he argued, but the future could be based on development and progress.
had to leave the city to avoid being captured. The society in the Kalverstraat was closed down by the police and Wiselius, the president, had to announce the message to its members. In January 1795 Wiselius and Nicolaas van Staphorst
were part of the revolutionary committee that occupied the townhall. Wiselius stood before the city government in the nearby townhall
on the Dam Square
to state that the time had arrived for them to resign. The next morning, the new leaders moved in without much ado and voted Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck
as their president. Stadholder William V escaped by boat from the beach near the Hague to England; there were no casualties and it is known as a velvet revolution
.
Together with Pieter Paulus
, Wiselius advocated an entirely new order, with more powerful central leadership. He distanced himself clearly from the Union of Utrecht
, which in his view was only "a weak, barely coherent, and in many senses useless treaty violated almost daily" (een zwak, weinig samenhangend, veelszins nutteloos en schier dagelijks geschonden tractaat). The vast powers which the Provincial States (the highest authorities in the provinces) had wielded over the past two hundred years were to be reduced to those of mere clerical institutions.
In 1796 he was appointed one of the twenty-eight members of the Committee on the East-Indies Trade and Possessions (Committé tot den Oost-Indische[n] Handel en Bezittingen), along with Wybo Fijnje
, with whom he quarrelled two years later. The committee had to come up with a way of dealing with the bankrupt VOC, a symbol of the Ancien Régime's power. The Dutch East India Company
was nationalised, its so-called Outer Chambers in Middelburg
, Delft
, Enkhuizen
and Hoorn
closed down and its surplus employees dismissed. In 1798 the Unitarists Wiselius, Von Liebeherr, Wybo Fijnje
and Quint Ondaatje
were involved in the plans of a coup by Daendels. The French ambassador Charles Delacroix was willing to help if the Dutch came up with a substantial financial reward. In 1801, Wiselius wrote a pamphlet making a laughing-stock of Guillelmus Titsingh, a former Dutch East India Company
-administrator. As a result, Wiselius was not re-appointed as one of the nine members of the Council of Asian Possessions and Establishments (Raad van Aziatische Bezittingen en Etablissementen). A furious Wiselius accused his former colleagues of mismanagement. Wiselius had more respect for Dirk van Hogendorp, a precursor of Multatuli
. In 1807 Herman Willem Daendels
was sent to Batavia to prepare for the necessary changes.
as King of the Netherlands led to vehement protests in 1806. Wiselius was among those refusing to offer their services to "Mr Bonaparte" (den heer Bonaparte). Left without a post, Wiselius now devoted himself to his private interests: the history of Ancient Greece
and of the city of Amsterdam
, and writing plays and poems, living in his country house at the borders of the River Vecht
.
Later Wiselius was to publish the charter of 1275. He was also involved in the repairs of the dilapidated historic castle Muiderslot
, which was to become museum.
It was long suggested that it was Wiselius, not Maria Aletta Hulshoff
, who wrote the radical pamphlet entitled Oproeping aan het Bataafse volk ("An Appeal to the Batavian People"). Valckenaer defended her and Wiselius helped the radical Hulshoff escape to England. In 1811, the year after, she moved to New York.
In 1814, Wiselius was appointed director of the Amsterdam Police after he had refused to accept a position in Batavia. He preferred to stay with his children when his wife died. In 1817, Wiselius was appointed secretary to the Royal Institute of Sciences
(KNI) as successor to Willem Bilderdijk
. On August, 1824 Wiselius was visited in his recently rented house, at a prestigious canal in the Jewish neighborhood, not by Louis Bonaparte
(as a long-lived legend about his house at Nieuwe Herengracht 99 would have it), but by Gustav IV
, the deposed and exiled king of Sweden. The two men discussed Het Réveil, a new, revivalist religious movement, which had started around 1810 in Switzerland. Wiselius showed him the largest room of his house, with a view on the park and five enormous fixed paintings: hunting scenes by Jan Weenix
. A few years before Gustav had given up his attic
at the smelly Birsig
in Basel
.
The fixed paintings were very fashionable and appreciated in the Romantic
era. Actually the building had always been favoured by rich and illustrious art lovers, such as Hendrik Gravé
and Isaac de Pinto
. In 1923, the paintings were sold in a private arrangement by the Order of Poor Ladies
to the media magnate William Randolph Hearst
, who was travelling through Europe in search of objects for his Hearst Castle
estate on the Californian coast. Since a few decades the paintings have been dispersed; two of them are in the Carlyle Hotel
in New York, where Hearst lived for some time, one is in Edinburgh, one is since 1953 in the Allen Memorial Art Museum
and one painting seems to be lost.
In 1835, as the head of the police, Wiselius was involved in controlling the tax revolts, organized by house owners at Herenmarkt square and in the Jordaan
neighbourhood. Afterwards he and the city mayor were heavily criticised, while sitting dozy in their chairs, after a meal. Wiselius had not attended in person, but had dispatched a commissioner instead. Wiselius resigned in 1840, but kept his position as secretary of the KNI's literary division for a few more years.
hardly ever has a positive opinion of Wiselius and the Patriot brotherhood, describing them as only quasi-intellectual
, and Wiselius himself as a minor figure, a Jacobin
, a renegade
and an over-loud, pessimistic drawing-room liberal who shirked real issues, and ended up leaving politics an embittered man.
Ridder (title)
Ridder is a noble title in the Netherlands and Belgium. The collective term for its holders in a certain locality is the Ridderschap . In the Netherlands and Belgium no female equivalent exists...
Wiselius (4 February 1769 – 15 May 1845) was a successful Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
lawyer and a prominent Patriot
Patriots (faction)
The Patriots were a political faction in the Dutch Republic in the second half of the 18th century. They were led by Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, gaining power from November 1782....
and democrat, involved in the dismantling of the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(VOC) and the negotiations over the Cape
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
. Wiselius was a witty, Voltairian
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
spirit with political views far ahead of his time who would end his days writing dramas on Classical themes. ... Wiselius corresponded with nearly all the main players at the time of the Batavian Republic
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....
and it would be impossible to know that period completely without his carefully kept and neatly written correspondence. He was also a poet, historian and superintendent of the police.
Early life
Samuel was born in AmsterdamAmsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, the only son of the oil merchant Iperus Wiselius, himself a Patriot and a captain in the civic guard
Schutterij
Schutterij refers to a voluntary city guard or citizen militia in the medieval and early modern Netherlands, intended to protect the town or city from attack and act in case of revolt or fire. Their training grounds were often on open spaces within the city, near the city walls, but, when the...
, promoted to colonel in May 1787. He grew up on Nieuwezijds Kolk, probably the oldest spot in the city centre. Samuel studied law and classics on the Athenaeum Illustre. In 1786 he travelled to Franeker
Franeker
Franeker is one of the eleven historical cities of Friesland and capital of the municipality of Franekeradeel. It is located about 20 km west of Leeuwarden on the Van Harinxma Canal. As of 1 January 2006, it had 12,996 inhabitants. The city is famous for the Eisinga Planetarium from around...
, and showed his essay on dismissing the local militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
in 1650 to Johan Valckenaer
Johan Valckenaer
Johan Valckenaer was a Dutch lawyer, patriot and diplomat.- Life :His father Lodewijk Caspar Valckenaer was Franeker university's professor of law and, in 1766, was appointed to succeed Tiberius Hemsterhuis at Leiden...
and Theodorus van Kooten
Theodorus van Kooten
Dr. Theodorus van Kooten was a Dutch poet, professor and politician.Van Kooten was the son of the sexton at Leeuwarden, and amazed all visitors to his father's house by translating randomly selected pieces from the Greek bible into Dutch. Van Kooten became Kampen's rector in 1772...
, then progressive professors at the local University. Although the article went missing, the friendship remained, when the three took a prominent role in the country's future after the year 1795.
Samuel had to write a new thesis and obtained his doctorate from Leiden
Leiden University
Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
in 1790. He immediately became a lawyer at the Council of Holland, which also served as a court of law. In 1791 Wiselius was the founder of the brotherhood of l'Infanterie des Cinq Sabres ("Infantry of the Five Sabres") at Leiden, a flirtation with freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. (Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
had gained great success that year with his masonically-inspired opera The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
). Wiselius moved with his family to Amsterdam in a house at Prinsengracht, across the Noorderkerk
Noorderkerk
The Noorderkerk is a 17th century Protestant church in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. A number of other towns in the Netherlands also have a Noorderkerk church, including The Hague, Hoorn and Kampen.-History:...
. He had full house in 1793 with three lectures for the society Doctrina et Amicitia in the Kalverstraat
Kalverstraat
The Kalverstraat is the busiest shopping street of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. It is named after the kalvermarkt that was held here until the 17th Century....
. Wiselius proclaimed that the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
signalled a radical new beginning. No longer was it necessary to take heed of the heavy burden of the past, he argued, but the future could be based on development and progress.
Batavian Republic
When French troops had approached the rivers Rhine and Meuse in November 1794, the Patriots started to prepare for a revolution and to stockpile weapons. The hiding place was discovered, and Jacobus van Staphorst and Cornelis Rudolphus Theodorus KrayenhoffCornelis Rudolphus Theodorus Krayenhoff
Cornelis Rudolphus Theodorus, Baron Krayenhoff was a physicist, artist, general, hydraulic engineer, cartographer and - against his will and for only a short time - Dutch Minister of War.-Biography:...
had to leave the city to avoid being captured. The society in the Kalverstraat was closed down by the police and Wiselius, the president, had to announce the message to its members. In January 1795 Wiselius and Nicolaas van Staphorst
Nicolaas van Staphorst
Nicolaas van Staphorst was a Dutch banker and a conservative republican. Up till 1794 he was involved in a total of eleven loans that were granted in Amsterdam to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders, and in the Holland Land Company.-Life:In 1782, the brothers led discussions with...
were part of the revolutionary committee that occupied the townhall. Wiselius stood before the city government in the nearby townhall
Royal Palace (Amsterdam)
The Royal Palace in Amsterdam is one of three palaces in the Netherlands which is at the disposal of Queen Beatrix by Act of Parliament. The palace was built as city hall during the Dutch Golden Age in the seventeenth century. The building became the royal palace of king Louis Napoleon and later...
on the Dam Square
Dam Square
Dam Square, or simply the Dam is a town square in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. Its notable buildings and frequent events make it one of the most well-known and important locations in the city.- Location and description :...
to state that the time had arrived for them to resign. The next morning, the new leaders moved in without much ado and voted Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck
Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck
Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck , Lord of Nyenhuis, Peckedam and Gellicum, was a Dutch politician of the Batavian Republic and an investor in the Holland Land Company....
as their president. Stadholder William V escaped by boat from the beach near the Hague to England; there were no casualties and it is known as a velvet revolution
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
.
Together with Pieter Paulus
Pieter Paulus
Pieter Paulus was a Dutch jurist, admiral-fiscal and politician. He was one of the ideologues of the Patriot movement and is considered by many Dutch as the founder of their democracy and political unity.-Life:His father was Axel's mill-builder, schepen and mayor...
, Wiselius advocated an entirely new order, with more powerful central leadership. He distanced himself clearly from the Union of Utrecht
Union of Utrecht
The Union of Utrecht was a treaty signed on 23 January 1579 in Utrecht, the Netherlands, unifying the northern provinces of the Netherlands, until then under the control of Habsburg Spain....
, which in his view was only "a weak, barely coherent, and in many senses useless treaty violated almost daily" (een zwak, weinig samenhangend, veelszins nutteloos en schier dagelijks geschonden tractaat). The vast powers which the Provincial States (the highest authorities in the provinces) had wielded over the past two hundred years were to be reduced to those of mere clerical institutions.
In 1796 he was appointed one of the twenty-eight members of the Committee on the East-Indies Trade and Possessions (Committé tot den Oost-Indische[n] Handel en Bezittingen), along with Wybo Fijnje
Wybo Fijnje
Wybo Fijnje was a Dutch Mennonite minister, publisher in Delft, Patriot, exile, coup perpetrator, politician and - during the French era - manager of the state newspaper.-Early life:...
, with whom he quarrelled two years later. The committee had to come up with a way of dealing with the bankrupt VOC, a symbol of the Ancien Régime's power. The Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
was nationalised, its so-called Outer Chambers in Middelburg
Middelburg
Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...
, Delft
Delft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
, Enkhuizen
Enkhuizen
Enkhuizen is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia.Enkhuizen was one of the harbour-towns of the VOC, just like Hoorn and Amsterdam, from where overseas trade with the East Indies was conducted. It received city rights in 1355...
and Hoorn
Hoorn
-Cities :* Purmerend * Enkhuizen * Alkmaar * Amsterdam * Lelystad * Den Helder * Leeuwarden -Towns :* Edam...
closed down and its surplus employees dismissed. In 1798 the Unitarists Wiselius, Von Liebeherr, Wybo Fijnje
Wybo Fijnje
Wybo Fijnje was a Dutch Mennonite minister, publisher in Delft, Patriot, exile, coup perpetrator, politician and - during the French era - manager of the state newspaper.-Early life:...
and Quint Ondaatje
Quint Ondaatje
Pieter Philips Jurriaan Quint Ondaatje was a Dutch patriot and politician. He is called the champion of Dutch democracy.-Life:...
were involved in the plans of a coup by Daendels. The French ambassador Charles Delacroix was willing to help if the Dutch came up with a substantial financial reward. In 1801, Wiselius wrote a pamphlet making a laughing-stock of Guillelmus Titsingh, a former Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
-administrator. As a result, Wiselius was not re-appointed as one of the nine members of the Council of Asian Possessions and Establishments (Raad van Aziatische Bezittingen en Etablissementen). A furious Wiselius accused his former colleagues of mismanagement. Wiselius had more respect for Dirk van Hogendorp, a precursor of Multatuli
Multatuli
Eduard Douwes Dekker , better known by his pen name Multatuli , was a Dutch writer famous for his satirical novel, Max Havelaar , which denounced the abuses of colonialism in the Dutch East Indies .-Biography:Dekker was born in Amsterdam...
. In 1807 Herman Willem Daendels
Herman Willem Daendels
Herman Willem Daendels was a Dutch politician who served as the 36th Governor General of the Dutch East Indies between 1808 and 1811....
was sent to Batavia to prepare for the necessary changes.
Kingdom of Holland
The appointment of Louis BonaparteLouis Bonaparte
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu , King of Holland , was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino...
as King of the Netherlands led to vehement protests in 1806. Wiselius was among those refusing to offer their services to "Mr Bonaparte" (den heer Bonaparte). Left without a post, Wiselius now devoted himself to his private interests: the history of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and of the city of Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, and writing plays and poems, living in his country house at the borders of the River Vecht
Vecht (Utrecht)
thumb|right|[[Satellite]] [[image]] of the surroundings of [[Utrecht |Utrecht]] showing river Vecht and the [[Amsterdam-Rhine Canal]] .220px|thumb|right|Location of river Vecht ....
.
Later Wiselius was to publish the charter of 1275. He was also involved in the repairs of the dilapidated historic castle Muiderslot
Muiderslot
The Muiderslot is a castle in the Netherlands, located at the mouth of the river Vecht, some 15 kilometers southeast of Amsterdam, in Muiden, where it flows into what used to be the Zuiderzee...
, which was to become museum.
It was long suggested that it was Wiselius, not Maria Aletta Hulshoff
Maria Aletta Hulshoff
Maria Aletta Hulshoff, pen-name "Mietje", was a Dutch Patriot, feminist and pamphleteer.-Life:...
, who wrote the radical pamphlet entitled Oproeping aan het Bataafse volk ("An Appeal to the Batavian People"). Valckenaer defended her and Wiselius helped the radical Hulshoff escape to England. In 1811, the year after, she moved to New York.
Kingdom of the Netherlands
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands...
(KNI) as successor to Willem Bilderdijk
Willem Bilderdijk
Willem Bilderdijk , Dutch poet, the son of an Amsterdam physician. When he was six years old an accident to his foot incapacitated him for ten years, and he developed habits of continuous and concentrated study...
. On August, 1824 Wiselius was visited in his recently rented house, at a prestigious canal in the Jewish neighborhood, not by Louis Bonaparte
Louis Bonaparte
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu , King of Holland , was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino...
(as a long-lived legend about his house at Nieuwe Herengracht 99 would have it), but by Gustav IV
Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden
Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden also Gustav Adolph was King of Sweden from 1792 until his abdication in 1809. He was the son of Gustav III of Sweden and his queen consort Sophia Magdalena, eldest daughter of Frederick V of Denmark and his first wife Louise of Great Britain. He was the last Swedish...
, the deposed and exiled king of Sweden. The two men discussed Het Réveil, a new, revivalist religious movement, which had started around 1810 in Switzerland. Wiselius showed him the largest room of his house, with a view on the park and five enormous fixed paintings: hunting scenes by Jan Weenix
Jan Weenix
Jan Weenix or Joannis Wenix was a Dutch painter. He was trained by his father, Jan Baptist Weenix, together with his cousin Melchior d'Hondecoeter. Like his father, he devoted himself to a variety of subjects, but his fame is chiefly due to his paintings of dead game and of hunting scenes...
. A few years before Gustav had given up his attic
Attic
An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...
at the smelly Birsig
Birsig
The Birsig is a rather small river in eastern France and northern Switzerland. Its source is in the village Biederthal, in the French Haut-Rhin department, near the Swiss border. The Birsig is about 21 kilometers long and its watershed area is about 82 square kilometers. It flows variably through...
in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
.
The fixed paintings were very fashionable and appreciated in the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
era. Actually the building had always been favoured by rich and illustrious art lovers, such as Hendrik Gravé
Hendrik Gravé
-Life:On his eighteenth birthday, Gravé entered the service of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, in 1691 becoming luitenant-ter-zee. In 1698, he became buitengewoon kapitein . He married Lucia van Mollem in 1704 in the Waldensian church in Utrecht, and they had one son, Hendrik , and one daughter,...
and Isaac de Pinto
Isaac de Pinto
Isaac de Pinto was a Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin, a scholar and one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company....
. In 1923, the paintings were sold in a private arrangement by the Order of Poor Ladies
Order of Poor Ladies
The Poor Clares also known as the Order of Saint Clare, the Order of Poor Ladies, the Poor Clare Sisters, the Clarisse, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, and the Second Order of St. Francis, , comprise several orders of nuns in the Catholic Church...
to the media magnate William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
, who was travelling through Europe in search of objects for his Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...
estate on the Californian coast. Since a few decades the paintings have been dispersed; two of them are in the Carlyle Hotel
Carlyle Hotel
The Carlyle Hotel, known formally as The Carlyle, is a combination luxury and residential hotel located at 35 East 76th Street on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue, in the Upper East Side area of New York City...
in New York, where Hearst lived for some time, one is in Edinburgh, one is since 1953 in the Allen Memorial Art Museum
Allen Memorial Art Museum
The Allen Memorial Art Museum is located in Oberlin, Ohio and is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, its collection is one of the finest of any college or university museum in the United States, consistently ranking among those of Harvard and Yale...
and one painting seems to be lost.
In 1835, as the head of the police, Wiselius was involved in controlling the tax revolts, organized by house owners at Herenmarkt square and in the Jordaan
Jordaan
The Jordaan is a district of the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The area is bordered by the Lijnbaansgracht canal to the west, the Prinsengracht to the east, the Brouwersgracht to the north and the Leidsegracht to the south...
neighbourhood. Afterwards he and the city mayor were heavily criticised, while sitting dozy in their chairs, after a meal. Wiselius had not attended in person, but had dispatched a commissioner instead. Wiselius resigned in 1840, but kept his position as secretary of the KNI's literary division for a few more years.
Reception
After his death his son-in-law, P. van Limburg Brouwer, a physician and writer, wrote a dull biography, but with some crucial details. The statesman J.R. Thorbecke in his Historische Schetsen ("Historical Sketches"), published in 1860, criticised the biographer, his subject and his florid jargon. Some authors regard Wiselius as forceful, sharp-witted, animated or even overstrung. Simon SchamaSimon Schama
Simon Michael Schama, CBE is a British historian and art historian. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University. He is best known for writing and hosting the 15-part BBC documentary series A History of Britain...
hardly ever has a positive opinion of Wiselius and the Patriot brotherhood, describing them as only quasi-intellectual
, and Wiselius himself as a minor figure, a Jacobin
Jacobin (politics)
A Jacobin , in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-left political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques ,...
, a renegade
Turncoat
A turncoat is a person who shifts allegiance from one loyalty or ideal to another, betraying or deserting an original cause by switching to the opposing side or party...
and an over-loud, pessimistic drawing-room liberal who shirked real issues, and ended up leaving politics an embittered man.
Works (selection)
- Proeve over de verschillende regeringsvormen, in derzelver betrekking tot het maatschappelijk geluk / door S.I.Z. Wiselius (1831)
- De staatkundige verlichting der Nederlanden, in een wijsgeerig-historisch tafereel geschetst : een geschrift van den jare 1793. Wiselius, Samuel Iperuszoon / 2e dr / Brest van Kempen / 1828
- Geschiedenis van Oud-Griekenland / J. Del. de Sales ; in het Nederduitsch vert. en met aanm. en bijvoegzelen verm. door Samuel Iperuszoon Wiselius ; 1808–1817
- Berijmde vertaling van het XIVde hoofdstuk van den propheet Jesaia. Wiselius, S.Iz. / Hendrik Gartman / 1813
- Wederlegging van het Nader request en de zogenaamde Memorie adstructief van Mr. H. C. Cras, W. Willink en D. M. van Gelder de Neufville, aan het staats-bewind der Bataafsche Republiek, ingediend van wegen eenige participanten in de gewezen Oost-Indische Compagnie. Wiselius, Samuel Iperuszoon / Willem Holtrop / 1803
- Beroep van mr. S.Iz. Wiselius, lid van den Raad der Asiatische Bezittingen en Etablissementen, op het Bataafsche volk, ter zake van den inhoud eens briefs door het wetgeevend ligchaam van het Bataafsch gemeenebest aan het staats-bewind der Bataafsche Republiek, gezonden ten geleide van de toestemming in de begroting der staats-behoeften over den jaare 1804.Wiselius, S.Iz. / W. Holtrop / 1804
- Berijmde vertaling van den lierzang van Habakuk, zijnde het 3de hoofdstuk diens propheets. Wiselius, S.Iz. / H. Gartman / 1815
Sources
- This article is based entirely or partially on its equivalent on Dutch Wikipedia.
External links
- Entry on Wiselius
- Patriot and Patrian on Wiselius DBNL entry for Wiselius
- History of the arrangement of the VOC archives
- One of the paintings by Jan Weenix, made for Nieuwe Herengracht 99 Wiselius's introduction of the word "apekool" (humbug or codswallop) into the Dutch language. The word most probably originates in YiddishYiddish languageYiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
. Wiselius handwriting Entry in German Meyers Grosses Konversation Lexicon