Biography

Discussion

As a photographer, Jan Adriaan van Eijk was among the ‘gentleman’ amateurs who, well-educated and possessing a broad interest in science and technology, practiced ‘the discovery of image production by means of light’ with great enthusiasm, alongside all of their other activities. As was customary for amateurs, Van Eijk sought his subjects in his own surroundings: the view from the window, his immediate family and circle of friends, the region where he and his family spent their summers. Van Eijk applied various processes and experimented with stereo photography on daguerreotype plates. Like many of his contemporaries, he explored photography’s capabilities for reproducing drawings and prints. In the literature of Dutch photographic history, Van Eijk is known only through the publications of Jan Coppens from the 1970s and ’80s. In recent decades, however, his name appears frequently in studies concerning the Paleis voor Volksvlijt (‘Palace of Industry’), Samuel Sarphati, and the physics department at the Maatschappij Felix Meritis (‘Felix Meritis Society’), thereby doing justice to the diversity of this nineteenth-century figure who lived and worked ‘in the spirit of the Crystal Palace’.

The earliest part of Jan Adriaan’s youth is certain to have been marked by the loss of his father at the age of one-and-a-half years. Willem Jacob van Eijk headed the glue, resin, and sulphur factory at the end of the Overtoomseweg in the municipality Nieuwer-Amstel. According to the obituary that Jan Adriaan’s mother, Anna van Eijk, placed in the Opregte Haarlemsche Courant of 22 May 1809, W.J. van Eijk died from the consequences of an ‘Accident [sec], which ended his dear life in the time of only two Days’. Four months later, a sister entered the world, adorned with the first names of both parents: Wilhelmina Anna Jacoba. Jan Adriaan was almost nine-years-old when his mother remarried, and up until his fifteenth year, a new half-sister or half-brother was born each and every year. His stepfather, Theodoor Johan Bijleveld, was the ‘Hoogheemraad’ (the highest authority of a ‘Dutch Water Board Council’) of Rhineland, who settled his growing family at the country estate ‘Wel-te-Vreden’ on the Herenweg in Warmond. What we do know about Van Eijk and his sister’s youth is that they lacked nothing in terms of material comforts. Their stepfather furnished them with ‘everything required of a respectable status and education’, as indicated in the financial accounting drawn up following the death of their mother in 1831. This included both a study at the Latin School in Middelburg as well as drawing lessons, of which the family has preserved one example. Van Eijk’s talents proved to be limited, but it was at least a good exercise in observation.

Perhaps it was an incident in these rural surroundings that had sparked Van Eijk’s later interest in physics, and specifically ‘the electric fire of heaven’. During a lecture given in 1853, he told of how a farmer was rustling up two cows in a field adjacent to his parents’ country house during an intense thunderstorm. A single lightning bolt killed both animals, while the man himself remained unharmed. In Album der Natuur (‘Album of Nature’) of 1853, Van Eijk related that he once witnessed a bolt of lightning strike directly in front of his house in Warmond, which pushed the window in front of him inwards. Notwithstanding, Van Eijk’s chosen path was more subdued: studying law at Leiden University. It is not known whether he also attended classes in mathematics and physics at this time.

After passing his doctoral exam in 1831 with a study about the Roman jurist Publius Alfenus Varus, Van Eijk took his oath as a lawyer with the likely plan of establishing himself soon after in Amsterdam. In any case, by the time his first child was born in 1833, he and his wife, Johanna Elisabeth Bunk, were indeed living on the Herengracht in the Dutch capital. Nothing is known about Van Eijk’s law practice. As B.J. Gratama (1822-1886), a professor of criminal law in Groningen, used to say during his lectures, the life of a lawyer can be divided into three phases: ten years of hunger, ten years of making money, and ten years of getting rich. To what extent this applied to Van Eijk is not known. The fact remains that he was able to hold a second profession while maintaining his practice as a lawyer. Like his father, he became the director of a factory. In 1836, Van Eijk purchased the ‘affair’—or rather ‘goodwill’—of a vinegar manufacturing company ‘of the 2nd and 3rd class’ in the possession of M.C.H. Hulman in Diemen, along with various tools and the full inventory of raw materials. Hulman bound himself to the agreement never to establish any kind of vinegar production under any denomination in the kingdom of the Netherlands, nor to assist others in the establishing and execution of such a pursuit. Van Eijk established his factory ‘De drie Bramen’ (‘The Three Blackberries’) on the corner of the Lijnbaansgracht and the Lauriergracht in Amsterdam. ‘Van Eijk en Co., azijnmakers’ (‘vinegar makers’)’ is listed as such in the Amsterdam municipal address books from 1845/’46 to 1848/’49. But according to advertisements in the Nederlandsche Staatscourant of 1 and 4 February 1848, Van Eijk had already quit by this time, with Joannes ter Haar, a man with whom he had associated, continuing the business on his own under the name of ‘Van Eijk, Ter Haar en Co.’. In the Algemeen Adresboek (‘General Address Book’) of 1854/’55, the company is no longer listed.

By this time, Van Eijk had already found a new part-time endeavour. In January 1845, he was accepted as a member of the ‘afdeling Natuurkunde’ (‘Department of Physics’) at the Maatschappij Felix Meritis (‘Felix Meritis Society’). This distinguished society possessed a renowned physics collection, a physics and chemistry laboratory, and an observatory for meteorology and astronomy. In these surroundings, Van Eijk is certain to have felt completely in his element. As early as the winter season of 1845/’46, he replaced a lector who had accepted a position elsewhere. Among the responsibilities associated with the lectorate were the tasks of instructing ‘jongelieden’ (‘young people’)—sons, nephews, and pupils of the members—in the principles of physics as well as giving lectures on Tuesday evenings. The physics amphitheatre could seat approximately two hundred people. In November 1845, Van Eijk approached the lectern for the first time and announced he was somewhat hesitant to stand in this place, where so many scholars had already spoken before him. In the manuscript of this first lecture, this opening passage was substituted for a previous version in which Van Eijk labeled himself as a ‘simple lover of physics’—hesitation, but without cutting himself short. And with what did he choose to regale his audience? A treatise on the ‘onweder’ (‘thunderstorm’). It was his favourite topic, unifying atmospheric conditions and the phenomenon of electricity, which he would discuss at great depth on numerous occasions in the future.

In the annual reports and annual accounts of Felix Meritis, Van Eijk’s lectorate is described as being temporary. With the start of the 1846/’47 season, he was paid 300 guilders each year, based on ‘erkentelijkheid’ (‘recognition’) for proven services. The lectors preceding Van Eijk had received a fee of 500 guilders per year. The minutes of the Executive Board indicate that Van Eijk’s willingness to take on this task was favourable for the society from a financial viewpoint. In difficult times, one reduced the salary of the amanuensis. Van Eijk, on the other hand, was surprised and grateful, and had intimated that the funds would be used to conduct his research in physics. The amount of 300 guilders repeatedly appears in the annual accounts, with the entry name changed from ‘temporary position’ to ‘fee for the lector Van Eijk’ after several years. Van Eijk continued held this function without cessation up until the 1873/’74 season. In 1855, he was made an honorary member, and in 1872, he was offered an amicable dinner on the occasion of his twenty-fifth year with the society—but only after the executive board had enquired whether a tribute was appropriate, when considering that Van Eijk was receiving a yearly ‘gift’ to begin with.

During the many years of his lectorate, Van Eijk covered a multitude of physics-related topics, with electricity in all of its various forms as the constant. He was not averse to experimentation, carrying out tests that no one before him had ever conducted in Amsterdam. One instance occurred in 1848, at which time Van Eijk wished to empirically demonstrate the concept developed by Michael Faraday three years earlier, concerning a field to encircle magnetic and electrical forces. The precision instrument maker A. van Emden, who had built a polarisation device specifically for this occasion, assisted Van Eijk in his effort. At this time, Van Eijk also managed to generate electric light with highly galvanic batteries. One year after his becoming a lector, the accounts make first mention of Van Eijk’s meteorological observations. Felix Meritis was well equipped for such endeavours, with an observation deck on a balcony behind the amphitheatre, which was also suitable for the observation of atmospheric electricity. Van Eijk’s talks and experiments are certain to have involved a high degree of spectacle and, according to the annual reports, were very well attended. Things sometime went amiss, however, such as in the fiscal year 1852/’53, when the board earmarked Dfl. 24.30 for a new dial on Van Eijk’s electrification machine, ‘broken in the service of the [Felix Meritis] Society’.

Under the direction of F.J. Stamkart, Felix Meritis’ astronomical observatory had again become an important observation station. Stamkart was an ‘arrondisementsijker’ (‘district inspector of weights and measures’) in Amsterdam, whose ‘Kantoor van de IJk’ (‘Office of Measurements’) at the Westerhal was where the instruments of Felix Meritis were calibrated. Stamkart was a layman astronomer but had received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for his scientific work in 1844. Van Eijk also took part in astronomical observations, such as the transit of Mercury across the sun on 9 November 1848, for which Stamkart published the results in the Tijdschrift voor de wis- en natuurkundige wetenschappen (‘Magazine of Mathematical and Physical Sciences’) of 1849. During the solar eclipse of 28 July 1851, Van Eijk was outside the city. In his stead was Professor C.J. Matthes, as Stamkart faithfully mentioned in his article about the eclipse, published in the magazine Algemeene Konst- en Letterbode (‘The General Art and Literary Messenger’) of that same year. At some point during this period, an attempt was also made to take a photo of the moon from the observatory. Many years later, in 1878, in an article written for the magazine De Volkvlijt entitled ‘De sterrenhemel en de photographie’ (‘The Night Sky and Photography’), Van Eijk recalled how he had tried to capture an image of the moon on copper plate—prior to the first attempts at photographing heavenly bodies made in France in 1850—together with the daguerreotypist Fortuné la Moile, but without success. As far as we know, this was the first time that Van Eijk was involved in the making of a photographic shot. Although Felix Meritis had been in possession of the very first daguerreotype equipment reaching the Netherlands since 1844 [?? equipment arrived as early as 1839, it was in possession of FM since 1844] , and Van Eijk was perhaps familiar with the tests conducted there in 1839, at no point was the subject addressed during the first ten years of his lectorate.

Van Eijk’s activity in the area of physics was not only limited to the circle of Felix Meritis. In 1846, the ‘Inrigting voor Onderwijs voor Koophandel en Nijverheid’ (‘Institute of Education for Commerce and Industry’) opened its doors in Amsterdam, an initiative of Samuel Sarphati (1813-1866) designed to mould future sales merchants and industrialists academically. In addition to several professors for the ‘alpha classes’ (essentially comparable to the Humanities), Van Eijk was hired to teach the classes in physics. Like Van Eijk, Sarphati was greatly interested in new technologies, though he was more at home in the field of chemistry due to his medical background. As a Jew, Sarphati was ineligible to become a member of Felix Meritis. Not until 1862 would the society’s ‘general meeting’ authorise the acceptance of ‘Israelites’ (with fifty voting ‘for’, thirty-six ‘against’, and eight abstaining). In Amsterdam, however, a privately owned physics cabinet intended for educational purposes was owned by the (likewise Jewish) precision instrument maker Abraham van Emden (1794-1860), the same man who made the polarisation device for Van Eijk in 1848. This institution was called the ‘Museum van Wetenschap en Nijverheid’ (‘Museum of Science and Industry’), which also organised lectures. Besides the professors C.J. Matthes and E.H. von Baumhauer, Van Eijk and Sarphati were also among the speakers. Accordingly, by as early as the second half of the 1840s, the lawyer and the doctor knew each other well. In 1848, both men were made honorary members of the ‘Bataafsch Genootschap der Proefondervindelijke Wijsbegeerte’ (‘Batavian Society of Empirical Philosophy’) in Rotterdam.

A year before, Van Eijk had been approached by the curators of the ‘Athanaeum Illustre’ to appraise the value of the physics and chemistry cabinet of the deceased professor W. Swart, with the aim of purchasing the collection. In the winding up of this long-drawn-out matter, it turned out that Sarphati had a claim on a model steam machine found in Swart’s cabinet, which Van Eijk had deemed unfounded. Undoubtedly, Sarphati had intended to acquire this model for the museum. His involvement in the museum’s fortunes is evident: when Van Emden was obliged to leave his premises on the Nieuwendijk in 1852, Sarphati provided him with an alternative at his business school on the Doelenstraat. From that point forward, the museum was called the ‘Polytechnical Museum’. In April 1853, King William II and Prince Hendrik paid a visit, during which Sarphati and Van Eijk both demonstrated several physics experiments.

Prior to this time, in January 1852, an interesting experiment had been conducted at the museum’s former location on the Nieuwendijk. The aforementioned daguerreotypist Fortuné la Moile gave a talk (in French) on daguerreotypes made by means of galvanic (electric) light. He surprised the audience by taking portrait shots of two university professors in attendance on the spot (in all likelihood Matthes and Baumhauer). Conceivably, Van Eijk might have been on hand to generate the artificial light. In an account of this gathering as reported in the 19 January 1852 issue of the Amsterdamsche Courant, the experiment is mentioned in the same breath as Van Eijk’s lecture on the topic of galvanism applied to light and heat.

At this time, Van Eijk was not yet working with a camera himself. Even the articles of the Delft professor Salomon Abraham Bleekrode (1814-1862) published in the Jaarboekje van wetenschappen en kunsten (‘Year Booklet of the Sciences and Arts’) in 1847 and 1850, which concerned the photographic registration of measuring instruments, had failed to spark a desire to photograph. As late as 1854, Van Eijk asked La Moile to make daguerreotype portraits of him and his wife, together with one of their daughters. A subject that did repeatedly recur in Van Eijk’s lectures at Felix Meritis, however, was (electric) light. In the winter season 1853/’54, light—’that invaluable gift (…) allotted to us mortals by the creator’—was even the theme of a concerted programme presented by Van Eijk, Matthes, and Baumhauer. On 22 March 1855, Van Eijk taught for the first time on the topic of ‘the application of light for the production of images’. Van Eijk’s popular science article entitled ‘Lichtbeelden’ (‘Light Images’), published in the Album der Natuur (‘Album of Nature’) in this same year, is probably an elaboration of this lecture. Dating from the same year is a daguerreotype of a small statue, which according to an annotation on the reverse side was ‘taken with electric light in Felix Meritis’ by Van Eijk himself, indicating he had now finally turned to photography.

Van Eijk entered into photography quite late, about fifteen years after its invention. The lawyer Eduard Isaac Asser (1809-1894)—a professional colleague, as well from Amsterdam, and of the same age—had begun experimenting with the medium ten years earlier. Even if Van Eijk was a pioneer in various areas—including the aforementioned attempt to photograph the moon and his successful shot using electric light as far as is known the oldest preserved shot of its kind in the Netherlands—he cannot be categorised among the first wave of amateur photographers’ active in the Netherlands. Because of his late start, Van Eijk’s dealings with photography may not be viewed as an extension of his interest in natural science alone. That photography eventually became an area of serious study is perhaps best understood based on his activities for the Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt (‘Association of Industry’) in Amsterdam. This organisation had been established in 1852 by Sarphati and several like-minded spirits, after having attended the Great Exhibition one year before at the Crystal Palace in London, where they were shocked by the Netherlands’ pathetic contribution. The handling of the Dutch entry had been left to private initiative by the government, which only later allocated 6,000 guilders—an amount far too insubstantial for devising a respectable presentation doing justice to the then current state of industry in the Netherlands. The Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt aimed to improve this situation by developing initiatives to increase people’s interest in the nation’s industry and its products, and to stimulate industry itself. This was to be achieved through exhibitions, conferences, and the dissemination of politico-economic and scientific literature. A large building would also be required for the exhibitions and conferences—a Dutch Crystal Palace—but then in a permanent form. For the dissemination of literature, in 1854 the publication De Volksvlijt. Tijdschrift voor nijverheid, landbouw, handel en scheepvaart (‘De Volksvlijt [‘Industry’]. Magazine of Industry, Agriculture, Commerce and Shipping’) was established. Van Eijk was made the association’s ‘director-secretary’ as well as the magazine’s editor, together with W.C.H. Staring. Fulfilling such a function, it was easy for him to build up an international network. Van Eijk established contact with the French magazine La Lumière, published by Alexis Gaudin (1816-1894), and starting in 1853, Van Eijk, as the ‘directeur de la Société internationale de l’Industrie’ (‘director of the International Society of Industry’), was the Dutch correspondent. In the initial years, the relations between Paris and Amsterdam were warm and close. La Lumière‘s chief editor Ernest Lacan allocated space in his columns to the Vereeniging voor Volkvlijt’s activities in the area of photography. In 1855, he presented a heliographic image on a steel plate by the French photographer Ed. Baldus as a gift, which was subsequently printed in De Volksvlijt. In Vienna, Austria, Van Eijk managed to garner the interest of Alois Auer (1813-1869), the director of the K.u.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei (‘Imperial and Royal Court and Government Printing Office’), in the association’s activities. In 1855, Auer was bestowed honorary membership in the association. In return, he presented an album as a gift comprising examples of the Naturselbstdruck (‘Nature Printing’)—which he ‘invented’ himself—as well as other printing techniques applied by the Austrian governmental printing office.

While it was not until 1864 that the Paleis voor Volksvlijt first opened its doors, the association started holding exhibitions as early as 1853. Following an exhibition on building materials, photography was given its turn in 1855. The exhibition was the first international platform where photographers could take part in friendly competition since the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt’s board consequently had major plans for the event. Its appeal to the artist’s society Arti et Amicitiae (” [?? Vertalen? Felix Meritis wordt toch ook niet vertaald? Letterlijk (3e naamval enkelvoud) betekent het Voor de kunst en de vriendschap]) in Amsterdam to serve as the exhibition venue was met with success. The exhibition programme was drawn up in French and was published in La Lumière on 17 March and in the Algemeene Konst- en Letterbode on 7 April. It was signed by the directors of both organisations and bestowed additional prestige through the aegis of the Dutch prince, Frederick. Ernest Lacan acted as the contact person for those French photographers wishing to partake. As a result, the French contribution to the exhibition was disproportionately large: twenty-eight of the sixty-five entries, which incidentally had a positive influence on the overall level of the exhibited works.

With the Internationale Tentoonstelling van Photographie en Héliographie (‘International Exhibition of Photography and Heliography’), the organisers hoped to familiarise Dutch photographers and manufacturers, as well as the general public, with advances occurring abroad, ‘where these arts have become an important part of the general population’s lives’. There were not only photos and heliogravures on display, but also photographic equipment and chemicals, along with anything else serving to elucidate the progress and current state of affairs in this particular branch of industry. As such, the exhibition was highly suited to a culture that would continue to expand in the decades to follow. People living in Western countries were beginning to sense that they were part of a dynamic, technical world—one in which innovations were a daily event. To serve this progress, competition among participants was encouraged through a system of awards and distinctions. Lacan was given the honourable task of handing out the twenty-one medals awarded his fellow countrymen by the exhibition’s jury.

In the same spirit, the Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt organised other international photography exhibitions in the years 1858, 1860, and 1862, albeit with mixed success. The frequency with which these events were held was on par with the prestigious Société Française de Photographie (‘French Society of Photography’), which held its exhibitions every other year. The number of Amsterdam exhibitions was remarkably high for an organisation concerned with industry in general. During these years, exhibitions were also organised in the areas of agriculture (1857), industrial art (‘kunstvlijt’, 1859), fishing equipment (1861), and Japanese objects (1863). Prior to the Paleis voor Volksvlijt’s opening, however, photography was the only regularly recurring subject, solely to be explained by Van Eijk’s impassioned commitment. Of the four directors, he was the only person who photographed himself. He was also the most productive writer. In the 1855 to 1864 volumes of De Volksvlijt, Van Eijk published nineteen articles. In the column ‘Mededeelingen’ (‘Notices’), he contributed more than fifty pieces concerning photography. Co-director Salomon Bleekrode published two short one-page articles in 1857, while Julius Schaarwächter (1821-1891), a photographer from Nijmegen, made his debut one year later as an author, contributing two more extensive articles. Excepting an anonymous review of the 1858 exhibition, Van Eijk himself wrote all other articles on the topic of photography appearing in De Volksvlijt during this decade. In accounts of the association’s exhibitions, Van Eijk’s tireless devotion is mentioned on numerous occasions.

Among the estimated 700 photos on display in the upstairs exhibition space at Arti et Amicitiae during the first Internationale Tentoonstelling van Photographie en Heliographie, five works by Jan Adriaan van Eijk were also on exhibit. The summary in the catalogue states that four of his five submissions were daguerreotypes. With his preference for photography ‘on silver’, Van Eijk was in no way a trendsetter. The daguerreotype’s heyday had already reached its peak and was outnumbered at the exhibition. Entry no. 15c, described as ‘Proeve van photographie op zilver, door electrisch licht’ (‘Print of photography on silver, with electric light’), is presumably the shot of a statuette from a private collection, with the following annotation written on the reverse: “Mr. J.A. van Eijk fecit. 1855, met elektrisch licht in Felix Meritis” (‘J.A. van Eijk fecit. 1855, with electric light in Felix Meritis’). This raises the question of whether Van Eijk’s first photographic experiments were conducted using Felix Meritis’ daguerreotype equipment, which had been in the society’s possession since 1844. Unfortunately, historical sources have as yet failed to provide an answer.

Van Eijk made daguerreotypes in various plate formats. Among his portraits of family members and those men with whom he associated, nine are on a 1/6 plate or smaller. Regrettably, the portraits are rarely accompanied by annotations. As such, the identities of most can only be guessed. On the reverse of one photo, Van Eijk wrote: ‘W. Warnsinck Jr.’ and ‘[LL.M.] J.A. van E. ft 1856’. This could be a reference to W.H. Warnsinck Jr., a board member of the physics department at Felix Meritis, with whom Van Eijk was in regular contact. In a double portrait of two girls, he noted: ‘photographed by [LL.M.] J.A. van Eijk in 1854 in the house on the Keizersgracht across from the House with the Heads’. Although he makes no mention of the girls’ names, in all likelihood this concerns his two youngest daughters.

Van Eijk’s legacy also includes six of his stereo daguerreotypes, a remarkable product for an amateur photographer. With their ‘magical effect’, stereo photos were among the public’s favourites during the exhibition at Arti et Amicitiae. In 1859, Van Eijk wrote in retrospect: ‘I will never forget with what surprise and pleasure those eminent and insignificant viewed the beautiful stereoscopic photographs of Claudet and others at the first exhibition of photography, [organised] by the Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt in the year 1855 at the exhibition space of the society Arti et Amicitia. The stereoscope was then still scarcely known in our country, and as a result, many who saw it for the first time could only be convinced they were looking merely at a depiction rather than the objects themselves by showing the inserted [daguerreotype].’ In addition to the stereo daguerreotypes sent in from abroad, there were also examples submitted by Dutch photographers: F.W. Deutmann (1808-1895) of Amsterdam and the brothers Ch. and H. Mouhot from The Hague. An article devoted to the Mouhot brothers and their stereo daguerreotypes had been previously published in the monthly magazine Astrea in 1854. In any event, Van Eijk and the Mouhots first came into contact and spoke with each other around the time of the exhibition. The two brothers presented him with a reproduction of a shot of Tsar Nicholas I lying on his deathbed, which they were distributing. The reverse is signed: ‘Pour Monsieur J.A. van Eijk par Mouhot’ (For Monsieur J.A. van Eijk by Mouhot’). The Mouhots may therefore have very well encouraged Van Eijk to experiment with stereo photography, though the physics/theoretical aspects of ‘lichamelijk zien’ (‘corporeal vision’) perhaps inspired him just as much.

All six of Van Eijk’s surviving stereo daguerreotypes are shots of still-standing objects: statuettes and other small sculptures, a bas-relief, and still lifes he composed himself. One still life depicts a rather intriguing arrangement of objects: on a small table stands an oil lamp supported by an ornamental base with an elegant lampshade; to the right, a glass stopper bottle with a milky substance that stands out against a dark surface; and on the left, a mirror that reflects the base and the underside of the oil lamp. With this curious combination, Van Eijk came close to achieving the highest possible degree of illusionism. In 1859, he published an article in De Volksvlijt on the topic of ‘stéréoscopisch zien’ (‘stereoscopic vision’)—likewise the source of his aforementioned words written in retrospect. The article is accompanied by drawn illustrations intended to clarify the latest theoretical insights. A year later, Van Eijk submitted these drawings along with his entry to the third Tentoonstelling van Photographie (‘Exhibition of Photography’). Nowhere, however, are his stereo daguerreotypes mentioned in the exhibition catalogues.

For two of the other surviving daguerreotypes, there is no way of determining whether they were actually taken by Van Eijk. They differ from the others in their execution. The passe-partout of the holders are decorated with an appealing octagonal golden frame, as used by professional photographers such as A. Daru in the 1840s. It concerns a small portrait of a young girl, possibly Van Eijk’s daughter Johanna Elisabeth, born in 1839, and an unusual cityscape, specifically the rear facade of an Amsterdam canal house. Annotations added later indicate that the house depicted is the ‘Koning van Polen’ (‘King of Poland’) at Herengracht 192, which was inhabited by Hendrik Croockewit (1785-1863), the director of De Nederlandsche Bank (‘The Netherlands Bank’), from 1849 to 1853. In 1901, Croockewit’s grandson Jacob Marie Croockewit married one of Van Eijk’s granddaughters. It is through her that all of Van Eijk’s extant material came into the Croockewit family’s possession.

Another surviving daguerreotype confirms that Van Eijk himself also produced cityscapes on copper plate. To take this shot, he did what Eduard Isaac Asser had done many times: he simply opened his window and photographed the view. Since moving to Keziersgracht 128 in May 1854, Van Eijk was living directly across from the Huis met de Hoofden (‘House with the Heads’), a picturesque monument of the Dutch Renaissance period, which, with its elaborate ornament and contrasts in light and dark, provided beautiful visual material on which to practice. The ‘King of Poland’ and the ‘House with the Heads’ are the only two Amsterdam buildings shot on daguerreotype and preserved for posterity. It is no exaggeration to say that, for daguerreotypists, the cityscape was a virtually non-existent topic.

From the start, Van Eijk was trying out various kinds of techniques and processes at the same time. The fifth photo of his entry to the 1855 exhibition is listed in the catalogue as ‘Photograph (…) from a negative on paper (without retouching)’. Judging by his entries to the photography exhibitions that followed, the daguerreotype soon after vanished from his repertoire. In the catalogue of the second exhibition in 1858, only two ‘Photographs on silver’ are cited in addition to eight paper photos—without any mention of what was depicted, as was true of his entire entry for that year. The heading under which Van Eijk presented a great deal of his work at this time was: ‘the latest discovery by Niepce de St. Victor’. In the years 1857-’59, C.F.A. Niépce de Saint-Victor (1805-1870) experimented with non-perishable prints in a range of monochromatic colours. Van Eijk published his first article on this topic in De Volksvlijt of 1858, describing the different variants he had applied ‘to small photographs, which can be observed at the exhibition of the Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt.’ Especially his fellow photographers are certain to have closely examined the prints in reddish, chestnut, splendidly black, or warm black violet colours, depending on whether Van Eijk had used nitric acid uranium silver or not, or resorted to extra baths of mercury chloride or gold salts. ‘A certain adroitness is required,’ he wrote with the slight hint of an understatement, ‘combined with experience, in order to (…) control the effect of the different baths.’ Niépce himself also submitted three prints of his own invention, with the jury honouring his perseverant study with the ‘medaille d‘argent extraordinaire’ (‘extraordinary silver medal’), as Van Eijk wrote to La Lumière. In De Volksvlijt, he returned to this same subject twice. In 1859, he described Niépce’s latest methods involving substances such as potassium ferrocyanide, which produced a ‘pretty colour like red chalk’. Those interested were invited to come and view the results of Van Eijk’s experiments at the Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt.

With the discovery of the wet collodion plate, the negative/positive process began to grow in popularity, eventually even driving the daguerreotype out of the portrait studios. While paper negatives had already been in use for a much longer period of time, especially for landscape photography, they were less suited for studio work. Van Eijk followed such developments closely and utilised his research projects to encourage these technological advances. In many cases, he recorded noteworthy details about the processes he applied with his prints. In exhibition catalogues, he stated at least the kind of negative used: ‘papier ciré’ (‘waxed paper’), collodion, dry collodion. Together with his numerous publications, which also contained accounts of his findings, Van Eyck’s observations provide excellent insight into the practices of an early amateur photographer. When we see a remark accompanying a print that states an image was fixed with ‘hypos. sodae [sodium thiosulfate, AvV] and gold salt v. Engler’, then this refers again back to Van Eijk’s article ‘Nieuwe wijze om positive photographiën te maken’ (‘New Method of Taking Positive Photographs’), published in De Volksvlijt in late 1855. The ‘sel d’or van Engler’ produced extremely pleasing tints ‘from a warm-brown colour to a full carbon-black.’ And he continues: ‘The permanence of these photographs, in my opinion, is not to be doubted, and I therefore highly advise that the cited treatment be further studied. The precious gold can probably add just as much to the durability and beauty of photographs on paper, as it has produced with daguerreotypes for many years.’ Van Eijk’s assumption was correct, as the warm-brown colour of the salt print of the ‘House with the Heads’ shot in 1856 demonstrates to this day. Strangely enough, he refrained from applying gold toning to all of his prints.

Van Eijk used the daguerreotype almost exclusively for portraits and still lifes. When applying negative/positive processes, he also turned to two other genres: ‘gezigten van stad en land’ (‘views of cities and the countryside’) and the reproduction of artworks.

With the first public presentation of his work, at the Tentoonstelling van Photographie in 1855, Van Eijk exhibited a calotype of the House with the Heads alongside four other daguerreotypes. Like Asser, he practiced at improving his ability by repeatedly photographing the same subject under various light conditions and by applying various techniques—an exercise for which his daily view out the window was perfectly suited. A third variant is preserved in Van Eijk’s legacy, which according to his annotations dates from May 1856: a salt print toned with Engler’s gold salt. In 1860, Van Eijk again submitted two photos of the House with the Heads, one on wet paper and one ‘like red chalk (bloodstone) (uranium and potassium ferriocyanide)’. These examples may possibly have been prints made from the same shot, in order to investigate the effect of certain processes.

The view from the window was the oldest and most obvious subject for those having the nerve to delve into chemical concoctions and capricious equipment. As Marc-Antoine Gaudin (1804-1880) wrote of the first days following the publication of Daguerre’s process: ‘Everyone wanted to reproduce the view from his window and happy was the individual who managed to capture the silhouette of the roofing tiles against the sky during his first attempt: he was ecstatic about the pipe stacks; never stopped counting the roofing tiles and the bricks of the chimneys (…)’. By the time Van Eijk turned his camera towards the world outside his window, he was hardly a novice. Nevertheless, as with most amateurs in his day, he limited his view to his own living environment.

In Amsterdam, Van Eijk photographed in two other locations, which were both in association with his own activities. The first was the seventeenth-century ‘Westerhal’ on the Westermarkt, a monument of Dutch architecture much loved by the citizenry of Amsterdam but nevertheless designated for demolition due to its dilapidated state. It was the first time that the threat of losing a historic building spurred photographers, both professional and amateur, to eternalise such a monument for posterity: Pieter Oosterhuis, Benjamin Brecknell Turner, and Eduard Isaac Asser. While Van Eijk’s precise motives are unknown, the choice of this subject matter was perhaps not so much determined by the building’s architectural qualities as the fact that the Westerhal housed the city’s ‘Kantoor van de IJk’ (‘Office of Measurements’). The head of this organisation was F.J. Stamkart, with whom Van Eijk collaborated at Felix Meritis’ observatory. It was at the Westerhal that the society’s astronomical clock and the other instruments were calibrated. Unlike the other photographers, Van Eijk’s shot of the building was not from the public road. Instead, he set up his camera in the front window of a private home at Keizersgracht 183 (then LL 227), where one Elisabeth Maria C. Matthes resided. Elisabeth was possibly a family member of the university professor Carel Joannes Matthes, who was also involved in scientific observations conducted at Felix Meritis.

The other location where Van Eijk photographed was less typical for the city, an area on its fringe that was part of Sarphati’s biggest urban development project, in which he too was also closely involved. In 1858, the Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt purchased a garden called ‘Flora’, located on a rampart on the western bank of the Amstel River. The association’s aim was to develop the area around the future Paleis voor Volksvlijt. One year later, the association also purchased the ‘Apollozaal’ (‘Apollo Hall’) on the opposite side of the river, where it established its offices. It was also where exhibitions were held in anticipation of the palace’s completion. On this spot the Amstel Hotel would later be built, as well part of Sarphati’s project development. As early as 1859, Van Eijk exhibited a first shot of the Apollozaal at the exhibition of the Société Française de Photographie. The photo is listed as Ancien Hôtel aux fêtes à Amsterdam (‘Old Hotel for Festivities in Amsterdam’) in the catalogue, photographed on wet collodion. One year later, Van Eijk exhibited a second view of this building at an exhibition in Amsterdam, entitled Gezigt uit Flora op het Tentoonstellingsgebouw der Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt (papier ciré) (‘View from Flora [garden] of the Exhibition Building of the Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt [‘waxed paper’]’). Finally, in 1862 he submitted two shots of this area: Gezigt op het Tentoonstellings-gebouw der Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt and Gezigt op het Wachthuisje in den Amstel (‘View of the Watch-House on the Amstel’), this time without stating the processes he had used. Clearly, Van Eijk had photographed the semi-rural surroundings of the Amstel River beyond the Hogesluis Bridge profusely. Only one salt print has been preserved in his legacy, featuring the watch-house on the Amstel. According to Van Eijk’s own annotation, it was taken on 28 June 1859 on ‘papier ciré extra prompt v. Marion’ (‘waxed paper extra prompt of Marion’). In the De Volksvlijt of 1858, he wrote that this paper had produced inferior results and that it was also costly. Van Eijk personally preferred self-prepared paper that had been treated according to the ‘directions of Davanne’.

A group of four anonymous collodion plates of an unknown origin exist that depict the Amstel yachting harbour and its surroundings photographed from the very same spot, i.e. as seen from the Flora garden. Two of these shots date from 1860, while the other two are from 1862. From these plates, prints were made, either by or on behalf of the collector and amateur photographer J. van Eck (1873-1946) circa 1900. Examples are to be found in the collection of the Amsterdam City Archives, the KOG (Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap, ‘Royal Dutch Archeological Society’, donated by Van Eck in 1909), and the topographic collection of A.M. van de Waal (1890-1960) at the Amsterdam University Library. The attribution of these plates to Van Eijk is supported not only by the subject itself, but also by the marked precision with which the shots were taken with an intervening period of two years. Only someone accustomed to making precision measurements and working with calibrated instruments could be capable of using his camera like a surveyor with his theodolite. One of the four shots bears major similarities to the one surviving salt print, albeit with different plate dimensions. We know that Van Eijk worked on large glass plates at this time, as other photos in his legacy indicate. Belonging to the same group of anonymous shots is a fifth collodion plate, with a view of the Westermarkt from the Westerhal, which is highly similar to Van Eijk’s only surviving salt print in terms of vantage point and framing. While it cannot be proved, it remains virtually inconceivable that someone else might have positioned himself in front of the very same window on the Keizersgracht and at precisely the same location in the private garden Flora to repeat Van Eijk’s shots.

Like many well-to-do Amsterdam families, the Van Eijk’s spent their summers outside the city. Both Jan Adriaan and his wife had their roots in the province of South Holland, in the vicinity of Warmond. Whether they still owned property in the region is unknown. They may perhaps have stayed with relatives or rented accommodations. According to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century descriptions of towns and villages, Hillegom, with its appealing location near the coast, was popular as a ‘pleasure resort’ among urban dwellers from Haarlem, Leiden, and places as far away as Amsterdam, with the newly built railway line being particularly useful. In the village of Hillegom, Van Eijk shot a number of townscapes in August of 1855 and 1856. This was a rarity in the Netherlands, where the genre of landscape photography was virtually non-existent in this period. Van Eyck was the first to observe and deplore this deficiency. In his 1858 article in De Volksvlijt, entitled ‘Vorderingen in de photographie’ (‘Advances in Photography’), he addressed not only the technical innovations, but likewise provided his own account of the ‘state of the art’. He noted that photographers abroad had been devoting interest to landscapes, buildings, and architectural monuments, while their counterparts in the Netherlands were limiting themselves almost exclusively to the portrait, for which there was simply the greatest demand. The reason, in his view, was the absence of a cultural climate that was favourable for photography. In Great Britain, there was not only an interest and involvement on the part of the royal house, but the government also stimulated photography. He was referring to the British military’s initiative to train and dispatch photographers, whose task it was to photograph anything of relevance—for the military itself, but also for history, archaeology, natural history, anthropology, ethnology, etc. He concluded: ‘With such a large and general interest in and useful application of an art (…) artists feel encouraged to continually strive for greater perfection.’ That Dutch photographers were ignoring the landscape ‘is highly regrettable, because our Fatherland offers so many gorgeous views, both of land as well as city.’

Four summer shots by Van Eijk are known, of which he sometimes made multiple prints in trying out various chemicals. They are all taken along the Hillegommerbeek (‘Hillegom Creek’), with farms and trees reflected in the water and the striking tower of the village church serving as an ideal visual terminus. These images radiate the atmosphere of a leisurely summer day. One image deviates from the others: the virtually treeless surroundings and the hot pavement of the Beeklaan road are anything but picturesque. In this case, however, Van Eijk has added a personal element to the image: standing on the high stone bridge leading to the lime kilns, his wife and youngest daughter, Anna (Annette), take cover beneath their parasols. For the negatives, Van Eijk used papier ciré (‘waxed paper’) applied according to the Le Gray method, for which different formulas existed. He recommended it highly to his readers, especially for landscapes, cityscapes, and architectural photos, because ‘for a short outing of 2 to 3 days [one] need only arrange the chambre noire [‘darkroom’], a tripod on which to place the camera, and a canister with pre-prepared papers, which one can easily finish upon one’s return.’ That was much more comfortable than venturing out with fragile, heavy glass plates, and a mobile laboratory to process images. The paper negative also offered the possibility of retouching. Two ‘states’ of an image depicting the Hillegommerbeek are known to exist. In the second state, Van Eijk shaded the creek’s bank on the negative with a fine pencil, which in the first state can hardly be differentiated from a moored barge—the artist at work. Even though Van Eijk was continually testing out various processes, he still had a good eye for the photographic richness of the city and countryside. His photos are not only important for the unusual choice of subject matter, i.e. the disorderly edges of the city, and picturesque views of villages, but also for their visual quality.

Documentation