Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/278

272 them and Barlæus confirms this; (2) the characters in which the names are written are German rather than Hollandish; (3) in likeness and color they accord closely with Marcgrave's descriptions; (4) the wood cuts in Marcgrave's text were for the most part made from them; (5) no other than Marcgrave could have made them. However he further conjectures that since they are smaller and he thinks "of less skillful perfection" that they are copies of the oil paintings. The two figures of the spotted sting ray previously given are the only ones which the present writer has seen, but to him there is no doubt that the water-color drawing was made from life if either is a copy it is the oil painting, which, however, looks as if it had been made from a dead and dried specimen. In the mind of the present writer there is no doubt whatever that Marcgrave himself made all or almost all of these water-color paintings.

Not so easily determined is the authorship of the oil paintings, concerning which Lichtenstein conjectures that they were made by certain "nameless artists" who went with Count Maurice to Brazil. Cuvier and Valenciennes and Driesen content themselves with saying that they were painted by the order of the Count. Piso in the introduction to the 1658 folio says:

Hence it seems pretty well established that Count Johann had with him another painter besides Marcgrave.

However, Driesen (1849) very effectually clears up this mystery. He says that

Now Peter Post was in Brazil with Count Moritz and was the architect of the palace called Freiburg and of the surrounding gardens on the island of Antonio Vaez (Nieuhoff). That his brother accompanied him seems very probable.

Martius (1853-55) arrives at essentially the same conclusion, having probably obtained his data from Driesen. He expressly states that this artist came back from Brazil with the count. Further internal corroboratory evidence is to be found in this statement from De Laet in his "L'Histoire de Noveau Monde ou Description des Indies Occidentals" (1640):

These figures are so nearly identical with the like in Marcgrave's