Julius Jacobus van de Sande Bakhuyzen was a distinguished Dutch painter and etcher, predominantly known for his landscapes.
Born in The Hague, his father was Hendrikus van de Sande Bakhuyzen (1795-1860), a leading figure in Dutch landscape painting and an influential tutor. So, as one can imagine, he was raised among artists and surrounded by creativity during his formative years.
Bakhuyzen’s father worked in a precise style, modelled after the approach taken by the 17th-century Dutch masters. As such, he championed the benefits of drawing and encouraged his students to work from nature, in the open air. He insisted they produce countless watercolour studies “in order to develop in them the gift of observation”.
By doing so, his students gained an advanced ability for both composition and draughtsmanship. By sharpening their technique, they were able to introduce their own ideas with greater efficacy.
Following his tuition in the technical aspects of painting, young Julius sought inspiration further afield. He was particularly drawn to the emerging ideas of French artists such as Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867) and Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) who were painting outside, on the spot, in oils. Their looser, more expressive, style was both exciting and natural - leading to a shift away from the older, more traditional, generation.
In The Hague, Holland, numerous artists began embracing the French style and the result was a movement known as ‘The Hague School’. Bakhuyzen was one of the principal contributors and could interpret a view from both a poetic and technical standpoint. He produced landscapes with finesse and nous, while also conveying nature’s soul, a sense of spirit.
Between around 1840 to 1870, he often worked in Oosterbeek, a popular destination for his father. But it was in Drenthe, north Holland, that he discovered his muse. In a paper from 1898, his friend Lewis Mulder described the special qualities of this area, “perhaps the most picturesque corner of Europe”, where “the genius of Ruysdael and Hobbema still seems to haunt the trees and bushes”. “With its small rural villages nestled behind discreet dunes - sunny, with its flocks of sheep grazing on the edge of oak trees centuries-old, with its red heathers extending for leagues, gilded by the sumptuous sunsets.”
Here, in this work from 1904, he’s captured a picturesque view across a flat landscape with a pond, cattle and figure. A golden glow radiates behind passing clouds. The brushwork is simple, yet descriptive. There’s a sense of utter tranquillity. Ease of form, calmness of spirit.
He often travelled to Drenthe with his sister, the accomplished still-life painter, Gerardina Jacoba van de Sande Bakhuyzen (1826-1896). The two worked closely together for many years, also sharing a workshop in their family home. Gerardina would work by the largest window, surrounded by flowers and light - her brother occasionally smoking his pipe and discussing general affairs. Mulder describes it as a rather messy, but creative, environment in his paper.
“The workshop is cluttered with studies. There are some on all the furniture and in all the corners; the artist consulting now one and then the other of these past impressions, while he proceeds to create a new work”. “The walls are lined or covered with sketches, photographs, engravings, etchings, Delft tiles, pieces of Cordovan or Gobelins leathers”. And “let us point out another table still covered with all kinds of paperwork: sketchbooks, circulars, letters of invitation, announcements of fairs and sales, accounts and registers.” The house itself was built in the 18th century and Bakhuyzen remained there throughout his life. “It is almost a century old. As soon as you enter, the vestibule with its old oak panelling pleasantly impresses you. Everything is frank and opulent”.
Julius Jacobus van de Sande Bakhuyzen was a calm, well-mannered, gentleman and an important contributor to the national art scene. A member of various associations, he played a vital role in the evolution of Dutch landscape painting during the late 19th century and remains popular with collectors. He’s represented at the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Public Collections
Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Timeline
1835
Born in The Hague, Holland.
Trained by his father, the distinguished landscape painter, Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen (1795-1860).
Studied at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
1860
Death of father, Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen.
1866
Undertook an extended study trip to Dusseldorf, Germany.
Awarded a gold medal following an exhibition in The Hague.
1871
Awarded the Royal Medal for 'Pond in the Hague Forest'.
1925
Died in The Hague, Holland.
Biographies
1898, Dutch painters of the 19th century
"What an enviable man is Rubens' biographer! Not only because Rubens was a superb artist, but because he led a turbulent and eventful life experienced by few painters before or after him. As a child, he was a page to the Countess of Lalaing; young man, private painter to the Duke of Mantua; finally in middle age, diplomat and advisor to these princes, ambassador to London where he negotiated peace between Philip IV and Charles I; At the age of fifty-three he married a beauty barely sixteen years old, and ten years later he was given a princely funeral. And despite his travels and his missions he found the time to paint more than 1500 paintings, among which there are some of colossal dimensions. What inexhaustible source is available to anyone who would like to become a reporter of this existence! How can we not find, to tell this picturesque life, colours almost as dazzling as those which adorned the palette of the prince of painters. First of all, there is the question of its cradle.
What a rivalry and what a struggle between Antwerp and Siegen, a dispute ending with the defeat of the proud commercial metropolis, forced to cede to the humble town of the Duchy of Nassau the honour of having seen the birth of the great artist. And, subsequently, what a succession of victories and triumphs; what honours and distinctions showered on the favourite of art and Kings: what procession of disciples and worshippers; what generous material to compose rich and dazzling paintings! And this with the hindsight of two and a half centuries, hindsight ensuring even more play for fantasy!
It is with a sigh of nostalgia that I reflect on this decorative life, as I sit down at my desk to keep my promise and talk about our living contemporary, Julius van de Sande Bakhuyzen. We cannot imagine a more striking antithesis than between these two existences. There, life in full, fever, movement, brilliance and prestige; here, calm and simplicity: an impetuous torrent opposed to a peaceful Dutch canal. When Scheltema, the learned archivist of Amsterdam, gave a lecture, one evening, fifty years ago, at the Arti Society, on Barthélémy van der Helst, he began in these terms: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I proposed to speak to you this evening about Barthélémy van der Helst. For this purpose I looked through all the archives but without finding anything that concerned him.' I could start in almost the same way, with the difference that I hardly had to dig through archives, an operation that I happily abandon to the browsers of the year 2000; but on the other hand I have had the advantage of being linked for many years with Julius Bakhuyzen, of knowing and appreciating his work, and of often discussing him with his peers and whom I consult in preference to others.
Bakhuyzen's life is the opposite of what we usually call an eventful life. It was even so little that since his birth until today he has not moved once. In the same house where he lives - still today, in his own house, located at No. 142 Nieuwe Haven in The Hague, he saw the light of day on June 18, 1835, that is to say just twenty years after the battle of Waterloo, and, barring unforeseen events beyond the order of probabilities, it is likely that it is in these homes that he will give his last brushstrokes. Besides, it could not be more painful for him to leave this house: too many memories are attached to it. This is where his father H. van de Sande Bakhuyzen, the well-known landscaper, lived and worked; this is where he raised his four sons and two daughters, this skull and valiant offspring who contributed perhaps even more than himself to illustrating and honouring the name of Bakhuyzen in the Netherlands.
Julius' older brother is the learned rector of the Utrecht gymnasium; the other two are professors of astronomy in Leiden; his older sister is the much-appreciated flower painter, the faithful companion of Julius who shares his studio and his glory. And apart from the very children of the house, so nobly prepared by Father Bakhuyzen to hold a good rank in the intellectual world, how many friends, all famous, were the guests of this home. Immerzeel, Huib van Hove, the two van Deventers, Roelofs, van Raden, Heppener, van der Maaten, ter Meulen, all began or continued their studies, as students, in this historic workshop where the old landscaper worked until his death occurred in 1860.
A solid old-style house, Nº 142. It is almost a century old and, like all the patriarchal residences of this time, it has less façade than depth. As soon as you enter, the vestibule with its old oak panelling pleasantly impresses you. No stucco, no paint; everything is frank and opulent. On the left, the antechamber; behind, another room; then a household bedroom with which the kitchen communicates; and after this a staircase; and another room; and along this row there is an endless corridor, with checkerboard tiles, leading to the glass door to the garden, a door through which such marvellous effects of light are produced in the morning that Pieter de Hooch would have been jealous. More than once Bakhuyzen has been tempted to paint these and it is to be hoped that he will satisfy this desire. At the end of the corridor is also the narrow and steep staircase like in most old bourgeois residences. It leads to the workshop. Go up, then knock on this small door on the right. 'Come in!' the master hospitably calls to you, and he welcomes you with a cordial: 'Hey, is it you?' (I assume you are his friends). In the blink of an eye he placed his palette and brushes on the table, on a chair or even on the floor; and you insist that he not bother and that he continues to work, nothing happens: I was just going to blow a pipe!' he said to put you at ease. I don't think never even surprised him at home when he was thinking of interrupting his work to light a pot. By living in the countryside with the peasants he contracted many of their mannerisms and their turns of speech and will begin almost all his sentences with Nou, the French's about or ah ça!, and he will end them with hoor, the familiar interjection corresponding to nos eh and nous quoi?
The master of the room having lit his burner and having offered you a cigar, you can count on a long and tasty chat, because, despite his all-consuming activity, the painter always has time available to keep up to date by reading. Paintings half or three-quarters finished stand on the easels. It is rare that we are nearing complete completion, because Bakhuyzen belongs to those privileged artists who, despite an enormous production, deliver their works before the varnish has had time to dry. For the rest, the workshop resembles many other sites of the same type: the walls are lined or covered with sketches, photographs, engravings, etchings, Delft tiles, pieces of Cordovan or Gobelins leathers. There we admire an interesting painting by Father Bakhuyzen, a landscape of the surroundings of Oosterbeek. It is the reproduction of a painting once acquired by an American Quaker who took it to Philadelphia. The original was so successful that the painter had to provide at least ten copies or reproductions. The brown horse represented in this landscape had especially excited the Yankees. There is not a collector who would not want to enrich his gallery with an Oosterbeek horse.
The workshop is cluttered with studies. There are some on all the furniture and in all the corners; the artist consulting now one and then the other of these past impressions, while he proceeds to create a new work. Part of the vast room is occupied by Miss van de Sande Bakhuyzen, sister of Julius, who has set up her easel in front of one of the two large windows, among the flowers, her models and her favourites, whose charms she interprets with so much fervour. An antique wardrobe leaning against one of the walls and an old sofa placed near it. The other window completes the furniture of this room of good work. Let us not forget a small coffee table on which rests a chessboard whose figures await the resumption of an interrupted game or the solution of a difficult problem proposed in the room, because our painter is a passionate amateur of the noble game invented by the Greek Palamède or by the Bramin Sissa Finally. Let us point out another table still covered with all kinds of paperwork: sketchbooks, circulars, letters of invitation, announcements of fairs and sales, accounts and registers of the company Pulchri Studio of which Bakhuyzen is treasurer, submerging and bogging down a pot of tobacco, a case of cigars and an inkwell. And you will get an idea of the familiar environment in which, more than thirty years ago, he inaugurated his difficult and absorbing career, which was to earn him a place of honour among our Dutch painters.
We can say of Julius Bakhuyzen: like artist, like man. His work corroborates the effect that the man will have produced on you in his workshop: it is simple, unpretentious, but solid. Sensational and noisy events are as rare in his artistic life as in his private life. It never crossed the artistic empyrean like a dazzling meteor; he never entered the temple of art with such a conquering step that the walls trembled and lost their plaster; never has a painting exhibited by him divided the army of critics into two camps, one of which exalted his work to the skies and the other of which literally dragged it through the mud. On the other hand, he never signed a painting like we see all too often today and in the kind of that which Punch, reporting on an exhibition in London, said was a masterpiece of modern art, but formulating this slight criticism, that one could not distinguish whether it represented the portrait of the Duke of Wellington or a waterfall in the moonlight. No, his art possesses the solidity, the clarity, the probity that we admire in the works of our old Dutch masters. They too were naturalists and impressionists in the true sense of these words. The impressions they felt, they did not attempt to convey them through a vague play of colors, but by a concrete representation of nature. They had studied this nature religiously all their lives and they managed to masterfully reproduce its finest details. Like them, Bakhuyzen not only knows what he wants, but his talent has now reached its full potential as maturity joins power to will. Frank and loyal as he shows himself in daily life, he also asserts himself in his art. And, to use a funny way of speaking about the Dutch, when he said yes means yes, and no means no, his oak is real oak and his cows have four legs.
There is little to say about its beginnings. It didn't start very early. So we cannot apply Van Hooft's words to him: childhood generally sums up the destiny of future man. But if he was relatively late in rendering his impressions, this does not mean that they lacked ardour, intensity and obsessive virtue. How many hours he spent in the 'Dekkersduin,' a paradise for the youth of that time, observing the course of the clouds and the play of colours and light! And how many times did he not exclaim in front of the magnificent panorama which unfolded before him: 'Ah! how could I not paint all this!'
His naive wish came true. At fifteen he had definitively chosen his vocation and taken his place among his father's students. This one was a conscientious artist coupled with a severe master. Ingres' precept: 'drawing is the integrity of art' was also his; consequently he required his students to draw a lot and carefully. Attaching capital importance to working from nature, he made them make countless studies in watercolour, in the open air, in order to develop in them the gift of observation and to make them acquire accuracy as well as firmness in execution. Young Bakhuyzen also attended the Academy. of Drawing in the Hague where, under the direction of Professor Van den Berg, he perfected himself in figure drawing, which later enabled him to flesh out his landscapes so pleasantly. Few artists excel even like him in this art. Only Bosboom can compete with him in this respect. The figures of Bakhuyzen represent characters or animals, herds of sheep or grazing cows, harmonize and blend completely with the nature that surrounds them. Their shape, their colour, their proportions, the plane they occupy, everything is admirably calculated to communicate an intense life and poetry to the painting. The influence of his father's talent was inevitably felt in the son's first productions. The work of every beginner always resembles, more or less, that of the one he has chosen as a model. But the young artist did not fall into servile imitation. He didn't even always agree with his father in how to design a painting. He also began to study the great masters of the French School who had just opened up new paths in the art of landscape. As his talent developed, his personality became more and more evident. Bakhuyzen was twenty-five years old when his father died in 1860. The first manifestations of his talent still show a close relationship with the productions of the landscape artists of that time. Koekkoek, Calame and others then set the tone, and, as a landscaper, Bakhuyzen senior belonged to their school.
Although young people today have taken the denigration of these painters too far, we must agree that their way of understanding art was quite narrow. They were undoubtedly excellent designers, meticulous interpreters of external and apparent forms. Only they hardly seemed to suspect that the tree also has a soul, or, better, that a tree should not be the goal but only the means to translate the impression that the spectacle of ambiences produces on the soul of the artist. The reaction did not take long to be felt. We were fed up with the laboriously brushed foliage, the dressed and prim trees. The disapproval even went too far. In hatred of these overly dapper trees, all trees were banned, whatever they were. The discredit even came close to affecting the landscape, the genre itself. And one of Bakhuyzen's main merits will be to have rehabilitated these poor trees and even to have restored them to honour.
It is not possible to characterise our current landscapers with a single word. In general their talent is too complex to be able to specialize them. However, there are some who could be called par excellence the painters of Dutch ponds, with their companies of ducks and their quivering rose gardens, or of the banks of canals with their willow groves moist with dew and rejoiced in the sun. Others delight in the succulent meadows where the greedy cows feast, or in the silvery streams losing themselves through the immensity of the Bruyère. If it were a question of assigning Bakhuyzen the place he occupies in this concert of landscapers, we would call him the painter of opulent curtains of trees, bouquets of foliage, luxuriant forests.
Certainly, it is far from being confined to one speciality. It is not exclusive. More than once he painted city views, canals and corners of The Hague, bare heaths, ponds and dunes; but he feels especially attracted by sites where an imposing mass of foliage forms the main motif. Not that he applies himself partially to painting a beautiful oak or a decorative beech; they always remain the accessories of the whole piece or rather they are subordinate to the overall impression that he wanted to convey. He will also preferably choose a brilliant and colourful landscape, and he will reproduce with rare emotion the enjoyment that one would experience in front of nature itself. However, subtle and refined feelings are not his doing. 'Art is nature seen through a temperament' said Emile Zola. Also, we breathe in Bakhuyzen’s paintings the serenity, valour and robustness which form the basis of his character. This does not prevent that on occasion he will masterfully express a more dramatic emotion which will have shaken him. As proof of this, I can only cite his Etang dans le Bois de La Haye, exhibited in 1875 and belonging to Mr. Coninck Westenberg. It was during the autumn of 1870, the terrible year. The news that reached us every day and at all hours was like horrible cries of death, the howls of a devouring pack. elevating from each newspaper, from each telegraph bulletin. One evening, to shake off the lugubrious impression that all these echoes of killings produced on him, Bakhuyzen went to seek calm and isolation in the woods of La Haye, and, arriving near the large pond, he was irresistibly touched and moved by this peaceful nocturnal landscape which impregnated his soul with a truly balsamic tranquillity and recollection. The violence of the contrast, the rest of nature, the absolute calm, spread like a veil over the mirror of the water and the majestic forest, acted effectively on his exasperated nerves, and immediately awakened in his artistic soul the compelling desire to give the dispositions in which he found himself the most eloquent plastic expression. He immediately went to his studio and threw on the canvas in broad strokes the draft of the passionate and forever famous composition which caused a sensation at the Salon the following year and which won him the great gold medal.
On the surface his paintings are very simple, but he strives to communicate to them light, heat and the open air, and above all he wants them honestly completed. He is not one of those who is content with quick study. There are many skulls 'brushers' of studies; but the painters of pictures are not called legion. Corot, Daubigny, Rousseau possessed this rare gift, which was also granted to our Bakhuyzen. Without being the equal of these great masters, his works demonstrate that nature inspires and strengthens all those who truly worship it. Genius opens new roads to humanity, talent is content to lead it, by known paths, to Beauty and to beauty, the Truth. Bakhuyzen is a talented painter. He hardly painted abroad; it is even rare that he went there. In 1866 he spent some eight months in Dusseldorf; his trade with the painters of this school was not without benefit for his art, but fortunately, he did not lose his solid Dutch qualities. The few paintings he finished there are even without exception views of the native country.
Among this number is the Gelderland landscape which won the gold medal in 1866 at the Hague exhibition. Proof of the great attention that the German masters paid to the valiant Dutch painter emerges from a fact which was reported to me by one of his colleagues who worked at the same time as him in Dusseldorf: Oscar Achenbach had strongly advised his students to go to Bakhuyzen's workshop to see his studies and benefit from them. In 1879 he was the guest of the Prince of Wied in Neuwied for some time. The prince had also been his student at the House of Pauw. But although Bakhuyzen brought back a number of sketches from Neuwied, as well as from Norway and the Channel Islands which he subsequently visited, he never seems to have found in these regions the subject of a real painting To my knowledge there are only two pieces, those exhibited in 1889 at the Arti company, the motifs of which were provided by Germany. It must be believed that foreign food does not suit him; because when he decided, for the composition of a painting, to take advantage of sketches taken abroad, he hastened to adapt them to the Dutch sauce.
He only found himself truly at ease in the middle of his native country. Soon he even felt at home there. Not a year went by without him was going to spend a few months in the countryside to look for impressions new ones or to strengthen and maintain old impressions. His companions were Stortenbeker, Jean Weissenbruch, and Roelofs. Sometimes we went to Vaassen where he drew, especially at the start of his career, the subject of many paintings and watercolours very noted at the Salons, from 1860 to 1870; then we emigrated to the land of dunes near Bergen, in Holland northern, or at Noorden near Nieuwkoop, which he discovered with Stortenbeker and Weissenbruch, and where he subsequently went several more times, notably with Roelofs who so masterfully assimilated the golden ponds, mantis and water lilies. In recent years he was especially required by Drenthe, perhaps the most picturesque corner of Europe, including the genius of Ruysdael and Hobbema still seem to haunt the trees and bushes; Drenthe where hundreds of 'motifs' are remembered in the eyes and in the memory of the painter; Drenthe with its small rural villages nestled behind discreet dunes - sunny, with its flocks of sheep grazing on the edge of oak trees centuries-old, with its red heathers extending for leagues, gilded by the sumptuous sunsets or overlooked by imposing processions of nućes including the dark mass opens holes from time to time to allow passage to a section radiant azure, the smile of an austere face.
It is there that Bakhuyzen spends a few weeks in the late season to return, towards the fall, loaded with a treasure of studies and sketches. He even deserts his home in October to make a furtive journey to Drenthe; not to work there, because it is too cold outside, but simply to see how Nature basks in its sumptuous autumn finery. I have more than once had the pleasure of accompanying him on these excursions to the landscapers' paradise, and I count the days spent with him there among the happiest of my life.
Bakhuyzen is always welcome among the simple population of this country in many respects which are still so primitive. Everyone knows it and everyone carries it in their hearts, as I was able to see each time we set foot in a place we had already visited. 'All in good time! You come back to us with your old comrade! What an excellent man, eh?' And this popularity is not surprising, if we saw him sitting there, with his imperturbable calm, the burner in his mouth and the colour box on his knees, surrounded by a swarm of admirers young and old. And I will note in passing that the natives of this country are neither importunate nor greedy. They will hardly bump elbows to express their admiration or whisper it in each other's ears: 'How good is that!' And what a pleasure among the kids and the little girls if he acquiesces to their naively expressed desire: 'Put me on that, my good sir!' And the wonder of the mothers upon discovering their offspring on the still damp canvas: 'But, goodness of heaven; It’s our Jeannot and our Toinon, there, near the pig trough!' We should the very dialect of Drenthe to help you grasp the full flavour of these scenes. Still priceless are the conversations of the adults, already more serious, and seeking to estimate what such a 'picture' could be worth when it has been put in a frame and behind glass. Twenty-five florins! It's at this price, truly exorbitant for the poor devils, let them tax the painting of the good gentleman. Their aesthetic appreciations of the picturesque merit of the objects differ notably from those of the painter. So they will not understand why he does not take it into his head to paint the mayor's house instead of this dilapidated hut. And as for the trees he chooses, they could show him a much more beautiful oak, over there, on the other side of the village.
What a delicious country that is Drenthe! Bakhuyzen owes him several of his best paintings! Let us remember, for example, the delicious Landscape of Drenthe, which he exhibited at the Arti company in 1883. But it is not part of my plan to list and catalogue the paintings that he executed during his very busy career. I will simply refer for this nomenclature to the study that Vosmaer devoted to Bakhuyzen in his Painters of today. There we will find remarkable analyses of many of the master's paintings. These adorn collections abroad as well as national galleries. The State Museum and the Hague Museum each have two. Others can be admired at the Van Teyler Museum in Haarlem, at the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam, and in all the more important cabinets.
His watercolours are no less sought after than his oil painting. They are often the highlight of the salons of the Dutch Drawing Society, which he helped found in 1876, and of the Pulchri Studio company. Bakhuyzen is even one of the most zealous members of Pulchri. He was part of the management of this company for a long time, and served, among other things, as treasurer for fourteen years. In this capacity, he rendered great services to this respectable and intelligent association. We were especially able to appreciate it during these times of financial crises that all societies go through and art societies more often than others.
One of these difficult moments in the life of Pulchri Studio occurred in 1886, when the company was informed that its premises 'het hofje van Nieuwkoop' could no longer be rented to it. To the mortification for the artistic brotherhood of having to evacuate this room, scene of so many demonstrations and edifying festivals, was added the concern of knowing where it could go to set up its home. Most members ardently wished that, to avoid similar eviction in the future, the society would own its own house. A number of projects and plans were submitted to the assembly. As treasurer Bakhuyzen had the most delicate task: with a paltry cash balance it was a question of bearing the costs of a vast enterprise. It would have taken 40,000 florins, while the company only had 4,000. However, Bakhuyzen was determined to see things through to a successful conclusion. And he succeeded in doing so, through prodigies of economy and good administration, the history of which would take us too far and which could only be well presented by the pen of Balzac. Today Pulchri is the owner of the building she built for her use; she has a pretty and spacious banquet hall, and she even has money in her coffers. This result, I repeat, is largely due to Bakhuyzen; but the treasurer was admirably supported by his colleagues on the board of directors, the goodwill of all members and the disinterestedness of the architects.
But he had foreseen these elements of success in his calculations, and added them to the 4000 florins he had in his cash register. As treasurer Julius Bakhuyzen apparently possesses some of the precision and meticulousness of his brother the astronomer. I even have reason to believe that, in the circumstances that I have just reported, these qualities were more useful to him than they generally are to the astronomer, for example when it comes to the discovery of a new planet. This assertion might seem paradoxical if I did not rely on the opinion of a competent authority if there ever was one. My friend Lindo told me about the visit he made one day in 1869 to Luther, the famous director of the Bilk Observatory. As Lindo complimented the illustrious astronomer about the discovery of a new small planet (if I'm not mistaken, it was Hecuba). 'It's not worth talking about,' Luther told him, laughing good-naturedly. This is already the seventeenth star that I have revealed to the inhabitants of this globe, but, believe me, the discovery of these little worlds is not worth a farthing. For the value of a glass of beer I am ready to discover a new one for you!' If Luther was telling the truth, we can therefore admit that the problem resolved by Bakhuyzen, for the benefit of Pulchri Studio, was much more delicate than that of bringing about a new celestial body in the immense empyrean.
Bakhuyzen therefore continues his path, calm, active and serious: esteemed by his elders who have appreciated him for many years; he is a wise and prudent advisor to young artists, a good comrade to all. I have reached the end of my talk. All I hope is to have faithfully rendered the image I intended to draw. As for accuracy biographical details I believe I can answer for; for, having finished the piece, I went to our painter and, without the slightest regard for his modesty, I said to him: 'Here is my article as I am going to send it to the printing house. Do me the pleasure of going through it and pointing out any errors it may contain regarding names, dates, and other details of this kind. No need to worry about the rest, I wouldn’t change one iota!' Our friend read my prose attentively, and when he had reached the end of I asked him what he thought of this toast:
You know, old man, said Bakhuyzen, you've got me way too much… - I understand what you mean!.... I replied, interrupting him. The dates and names were correct. May those who know Bakhuyzen say the same about the rest."