Cornelis de Bruijn
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Cornelis de Bruijn (Cornelius de Bruyn) (1652, The Hague - 1726/7, Utrecht) was a Dutch artist and traveler. He made two large tours - it is not known how he financed it - and published illustrated books with his observations of people, buildings, plants and animals.
During his first tour, he visited Rome, where he became a member of the Bentvueghels. He travelled in Egypt and climbed to the top of a pyramid where he left his signature. De Bruijn made secretly drawings of the Holy City, part of the Ottoman Empire. His drawings of Palmyra are copies. De Bruijn reached Cyprus and stayed among the Dutch merchants in Smyrna and Constantinople. From 1784 he worked in Venice with Johann Carl Loth. In 1693 he arrived back in The Hague and sold his souvenirs. In 1698 he published his book with drawings. The book was a success and was translated in several languages. Two examples have colored illustrations, the first color prints in history. Among his drawings were the first pictures of the interior of the Great Pyramid and Jerusalem that became known in Europe.
In 1701 he headed for Archangelsk. During his second tour he visited the Samoyeds in northern Russia. In Moscow he became acquainted with the czar Peter the Great. De Bruijn painted his nieces, and the paintings were sent to possible candidates for marriage. He travelled to Astrakhan, and reached Persia, where he made drawings of towns like Isfahan and Persepolis (1704-1705). He continued to Java and returned to Persia, Russia, and ultimately the Netherlands.
His drawings of Persepolis, a city destroyed by Alexander the Great, caused a sensation. The mayor of Amsterdam Nicolaes Witsen and a member of the Royal Society probably asked him to draw the city famous for its 40 columns. For a century, they were the best prints available to western scholars. Unfortunately De Bruijn was accused of Plagiarism and his second book, Reizen over Moskovie was not such a success. From Amsterdam he fled to Vianen. Somewhere he met a merchant with a countrt house along the river Vecht. It is not known when and where he is buried.
De Bruijn, who had read every Greek and Latin source he had been able to obtain, displays a convincing knowledge of subjects, at times going into the humorous. In Persia, he obtained a copy of Firdausi's Shahnamê, which he summarized and made accessible to the west.
[edit] De Bruijn's Books
- Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de vermaardste Deelen van Klein Asia (1698)
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- Corneille le Brun, Voyage au Levant (French translation, 1700)
- Corneille le Brun, A Voyage to the Levant: or Travels in the Principal Parts of Asia Minor (English translation, 1702)
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- Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie (1711)
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- Voyages de Corneille le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes Occidentales (French translation, 1718)
- Corneille le Brun, Voyage to the Levant and Travels into Moscovy, Persia, and the East Indies (English translation, 1720)
- C. le Brun, An Abstract of M.C. Le Brun's Travels through Russia (1722)
- Puteshestvie cerez Moskouviju Kornelija de Brujna (Russian excerpt 1873)
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- Aenmerkingen Over de Printverbeeldingen van de Overblijfzelen van het Oude Persepolis (1714)
Other English translations appeared in 1737, 1759, and 1873.
[edit] Literature
- J.W. Drijvers, J. de Hond, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (eds.): "Ik hadde de nieusgierigheid". De reizen door het Nabije Oosten van Cornelis de Bruijn (ca.1652-1727) (1997 Leiden and Leuven)
- J. de Hond, "Cornelis de Bruijn (1652-1726/27). A Dutch Painter in the East", in: G.J. van Gelder, E. de Moor (eds.), Eastward Bound. Dutch Ventures and Adventures in the Middle East (1994 London/Atlanta), pp.51-81
- G. Jurriaans-Helle (ed.), Cornelis de Bruijn. Voyages from Rome to Jerusalem and from Moscow to Batavia (Catalogue of an exposition in the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, 1998)
