Het Committé van Koophandel en Zeevart

This is the sixth plate of a twenty plate series, Hollandia Regenerata, etched by Gillray based on drawings by the Swiss soldier, painter, and caricaturist, David Hess. For more about David Hess, and the political and artistic context of the series satirizing the newly-created and French-supported Batavian Republic, see my Introduction.

The title can be translated as "The Committee for Commerce and Shipping." But what is shown is not the members of the Committee but a symbolic tableau consisting of a blacksmith attempting to straighten an anchor on an anvil, a street vendor selling matches, and an old man mending a sail. In the background a pilotless boat with tattered sail drifts in the waves. The figures do not interact with one another and there is no dramatic explanation of why they should all be on the same spit of land next to the sea.

This is one of those plates in Hollandia Regenerata which, in spite of the realism of its figures, remains closest to the emblem tradition and to early Gillray satiric prints like Six Pence a Day, where the visual organization of the print is symbolic not dramatic. For what we see are representations of the results upon shipping and commerce of the new Batavian regime. Both suffered dramatically when the British became enemies rather than allies of the Republic, blocking ports and restricting trade.

Writing in the latter part of 1800, Ralph Fell, in his A Tour through the Batavian Republic provides a first hand account of what Hess is representing in symbolic form.

The mighty commerce which Amsterdam, in former periods, carried on with all quarters of the globe, is now, by the inauspicious circumstances of the times, reduced to a petty inland traffic, and an inconsiderable trade with foreign parts by the means of neutral vessels. The immense number of dismantled ships with which the harbour is crowded bespeaks the former commercial prosperity of Amsterdam, and its present impoverished state. The greater part of the ships are in the worst condition imaginable, and would, were peace to bid the commerce of Holland revive, be found unfit for the purposes of navigation.

As with all the plates in the series, the corresponding page to the image provides a satiric commentary. The Biblical quotation suggests the reaction of the merchants and mariners to the diminishment of their maritime commerce.

Ezekiel, xxvii. 36. "The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee : thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more. v. 29, 30. And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly."

The "Explanation." (in French) is a parody of the empty rhetoric these merchants would have heard from the Committee.

Le commerce et la navigation vont grand train. Il est vrai que l'echantillon des marchandises en vogue dans ce moment, ne consiste qu'en allumettes-mais! laisséz faire ces bons patriottes qui rapettassent les voiles endomagées, &. qui redres sent les ancres cassés! Bientot les Bataves regneront sur les mers, et feront la loi à la glorieuse Albion!

Here is my free English translation of that attempt to "spin" an awful situation.

Trade and shipping are going great. It is true that the sample of goods available now consists only of matches. But let our good patriots repair the damaged sails and straighten the broken anchors. Soon the Batavians will rule the seas and make the laws in glorious Albion.

As in most of the plates of Hollandia Regenerata, Gillray follows the Hess's drawing very closely. The disposition of the figures and the details and meaning of the print all derive from Hess, but Gillray has once again sharpened every line, especially of the key figures. This is especially noticeable in the clothing of the figures and the basket of the match seller. Gillray has also added depth and detail to the foreground land and the background clouds, and established a clear horizon line missing in the drawing.

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Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on Het Committé van Koophandel en Zeevart.
• "Batavian Republic," Wikipedia
• "David Hess (painter)," Wikipedia
• "David Hess," SIKART Dictionary
• David Hess, Hollandia Regenerata (1797), Nawoord by Joost Rosendahl, Uitgeverij Vantilt, 2007
• Ralph Fell, A Tour Through the Batavian Republic During the Latter Part of 1800, London 1801.

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