Review of: 'Gender and self-fashioning' (2024)
September 2024
ELIZABETH SUTTON
Review of: C. Powell-Warren, Gender and self-fashioning at the intersection of art and science: Agnes Block, botany, and networks in the Dutch 17th century, Amsterdam [Amsterdam University Press] 2024
Catherine Powell-Warren’s new book about Agnes Block (1629-1704), Gender and self-fashioning at the intersection of art and science, is a much-needed contribution to scholarship about women patrons and women artists and how elite women in the early modern Dutch Republic were able to construct for themselves lives that were rich in social, material, and intellectual resources, and thereby, be cultural producers in their own right.
Recent books such as Women artists in early modern courts, women artists and patrons in the Netherlands, 1500-1700, and Heroines, harpies, and housewives: Imagining women of consequence in the Dutch Golden Age have challenged art historians to seriously consider the agency of women in the early modern Netherlands and to broaden methodological tactics for pursuing research around not only the scant material of archives and signed works, but the connections across artists and patrons, and possibilities for reconstruction that poems, paintings, and other material sources can provide.[1] This book demonstrates how using diverse sources and methodological perspectives broadens contemporary awareness and understanding of the complex interconnections that contributed to Block’s agency and legacy. Powell-Warren examines Block’s estate, Vijverhof, as a primary source, along with Block’s collections of watercolors and her Bloemenboek as sources from which social networks might be reconstructed.
Left: cover of Gender and self-fashioning at the intersection of art and science: Agnes Block, botany, and networks in the Dutch 17th century.
Middle: fig. 1. Philip Tidemann, Title page design for Agnes Block’s ‘Florilegia’, c. 1690–1700, pencil and ink on paper, 355 × 222 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-T-1974-88.
Right: fig. 2. Jan Boskam, Agneta Block (1629-1704), first person in the Netherlands to cultivate a pineapple, 1700, medal, diameter 6 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. NG-VG-1-1812.
Powell-Warren has multiple aims, including not only illuminating Agnes Block’s rich life as a “cultural producer”, but also to make the concepts she provided to examine Block’s life transferable to other potential investigations in fields such as cultural history, history of science, feminist theory and material and visual culture. She provides a foundation and touchstone for future scholars interested in investigating individual artists or networks of artists and patrons mentioned within the text, including Herman Saftleven (ca. 1609-1685), Alida Withoos (1662-1730), Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), Willem de Heer (ca. 1638-1681), and Pieter Holsteyn (ca. 1614-1673), and female patrons such as Petronella de la Court (1624-1707) and Magdalena Poulle (1632-1699).
What is particularly timely and necessary is how Powell-Warren’s approach sheds light on female artists and patrons we know existed, but for whom little archival information may exist. Powell-Warren’s examination of Vijverhof and Block’s watercolors and Bloemenboek, along with the encomium Vyver-hof van Agneta Blok, written by her cousin Gualtherus Blok, together allow her to flesh out the rich intellectual and artistic social life Agnes Block constructed for herself, and how its elements together allowed her to fashion herself as an elite female icon of patriotism: as Flora Batava. (fig. 1)
The book is organized logically to allow the reader to understand the multiple elements Block used to contribute to her self-fashioning. Each chapter includes an abstract and summary conclusion. This is helpful if, for example, one were to assign certain chapters to graduate students or was searching for particular information.
I appreciated that the introduction lays out clearly Powell-Warren’s aim as methodologically multifaceted. She clearly summarizes that in the fifty years since Linda Nochlin’s essay ‘Why have there been no great female artists’(1971), art historians are still failing to expand beyond the pitfalls Nochlin identified.[2] Instead, Powell-Warren asserts that Block was not unique at all, but rather that she wielded the power she was afforded as an early modern woman, as did other elite women of the time. Her self-fashioning was possible because as an elite woman, she had control over her own image and the agency to construct it. The tools she used were primarily her estate, Vijverhof, and her art collections, which served as ‘alba amicorum.’ Her story is interesting because she happened to be able to participate in and contribute to botanical knowledge just as science was becoming increasingly professionalized.
Although women were marginalized by being denied membership to scientific academies, she and other elite women, such as Maria Sibylla Merian, were still able to use their physical botanical collections and artistic reproductions of them to participate in scientific discourse. Through the persona she created as Flora Batava, Block was able to negotiate her place in the world of botany. In other words, she used her artistic patronage to construct Vijverhof, a portrait medal of herself as Flora Batava and watercolor collections, each of which contributed to and reinforced her image as a patriot and important person. Through these three mechanisms, she transcended being marginalized from the scientific sphere because of her gender.
Powell-Warren devotes three chapters to Block’s construction of Vijverhof, and two chapters each to the medal and Flora Batava and her Bloemenboek and watercolors. As she writes, “Vijverhof answers the where, why, and how Agnes Block became Flora Batava” (p. 62). Owned by Block from 1670 to her death in 1704, Vijverhof lasted longer than either of Block’s marriages, and as a landed estate, was itself representative and constitutive of the nation itself, during a period of land reclamation and national identity formation in the Dutch Republic.
Block used the artistic language of the elite – visual and literary culture – to situate herself prominently. She collected a variety of botanical specimens from across the globe, and even had an apiary and greenhouse, the latter in which she was able to grow pineapples and oranges, a feat in the cold climes of the Netherlands for which she was well-known. Powell-Warren is careful to make no apologies for the imperial bio-piracy and colonial botany of the Dutch Republic, and complicates Block because she was a Mennonite, and so, ostensibly a pacifist and supposed to be modest. Vijverhof – and Block – benefited from the spoils of the West-Indische Compagnie (West India Company, est. 1621) and Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company, est. 1602) and the estate was by no means modest.
Block constructed her own mini ‘Hortus Batavus’ to fashion herself as Flora Batava. These two symbols were well known as patriotic allegories for the Dutch Republic and the nourishing motherland from sixteenth century prints and poems. Like many Dutch elites at the time, an encomium in the Virgilian tradition of pastoral poetry (‘hofdichten’ – country house poems) was written about her estate. Powell-Warren includes Gualtherus Blok’s Agneta Blok’s Vyver-hof, written in 1702, in English translation as an appendix. This poem, extant paintings, prints, auction catalogues, and archival records, are the sources Powell-Warren uses to reconstruct Vijverhof.
Block cultivated Vijverhof to become a significant and well-known place for artists, ‘liefhebbers’ and scientists to visit. Seventeenth century botanical treatises reveal a map of connections to Block and shared artists and knowledge networks. The informal botanical and artistic network to which Block belonged supported the development of Vijverhof, and Block’s self-fashioning as Flora Batava through exchanges of samples, information, and images. Through these relationships, Block’s name was included in treatises she herself could not write because she was a woman, and therefore excluded from the increasingly professionalized sciences. As Flora Batava, Block could commemorate Vijverhof’s literal fruits, and her role in nourishing them.
One way Block commemorated her role in building the estate, her own mini ‘Hortus Batavus’ and model of a fertile homeland, was through commissioning a portrait medal. (fig. 2) Although Powell-Warren acknowledges that “paradoxically and troublingly, the medal, which was the product of Block’s self-fashioning that was arguably the most impactful, is of uncertain origins”, (p. 158) she convincingly argues the most likely commissioner was Block herself. Powell-Warren provides three possibilities for the commission: Block, or someone in her stead; the States of Utrecht, and the maker, Jan Boskam (fl. 1684 – ca. 1708).
The medal features Block’s portrait bust on the obverse, and the goddess Flora, set in a garden that must be Vijverhof, on the reverse. Flora holds a tulip and a cornucopia of flowers, while a rare pineapple and cactus flank her feet. Powell-Warren walks the reader through evidence for why it is most likely that Block, or someone on her behalf, commissioned the medal from Boskam. Although she was a Mennonite, as is clear with the money and energy she put into Vijverhof, she conformed to Dutch elite standards of display rather than Mennonite rules of modesty. The tradition of commemorative portrait medals for the elite, and the specific iconography employed, align with Block’s other representations, as Powell-Warren suggests in her analyses of Block’s portrait in paintings. Moreover, two years later (1702) Gualtherus Blok’s poem Vyver-hof infers that the medal was important to Block, and that it was included in the design of a title page for a volume of Block’s watercolors by Albert van Spiers (1665-1718).
Powell-Warren is less convinced that the States of Utrecht commissioned the medal as a gift to Block for her contributions and growing a pineapple. The shield of Utrecht does not appear on the medal, and it was made some thirteen years after a pineapple was successfully grown and commemorated by Block in a commissioned watercolor of the Ananas Linscotti by Alida Withoos. Finally, Powell-Warren also discounts the hypothesis that Boskam produced it speculatively, hoping that it might attract future medal orders. As she states, “while Block was a successful and apparently well-known woman, it is difficult to conceive that Boskam would have taken the risk of creating such a detailed medal without a commission” (p. 161).
These chapters on the medal commission correspond to the chapters on the Bloemenboek and watercolors of Block’s botanical collection. Altogether, artists who came to Vijverhof were part of a network of people that participated in Block’s world and contributed to the construction of her public-facing persona. Powell-Warren hypothesizes the connections of artists who may have overlapped in their time at Vijverhof, and who else among the Dutch elite would have served as nodes of connection to Block. She describes the Bloemenboek as serving many functions: as a catalog and record of the specimens Block collected at Vijverhof; as art; and as part of her self-fashioning enterprise as Flora Batava. In effect, the Bloemenboek and watercolors were a “paper garden”, a folio-sized Vijverhof that also stood as an epistemic record. (p. 228) One group of over 400 watercolors survives intact at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; the title page describing it as “Many species of flowers drawn after nature.”[3]. This is the Bloemenboek.
Only a few of the watercolors are signed, and only by three artists: Maria Moninckx (1673/76-1757), Pieter Holsteyn, and Herman Saftleven. The pages are dominated by illustrations, with little text other than the plants’ names, interestingly in Latin, although Block was self-effacing about her lack of knowledge of that classical language. In addition to the Bloemenboek, Block owned many loose watercolors and albums. From inventory records and auction catalogues, Powell-Warren suggests that Block owned a minimum of nine books of watercolors and drawings. Two volumes, now at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, also probably belonged to Block. In these volumes, insects and animals, along with plants, appear, though without labels. That these botanical paper works seem to have been assembled over decades demonstrates Block’s sustained investment in documenting her collection and, like the portrait medal, constructing her identity and legacy as Flora Batava.
In the penultimate chapter, Powell-Warren describes the Bloemenboek as a kind of virtual meeting place, where a community of artists collaboratively constructed memories of the garden and plants by meeting, over time, on pages and physically in the gardens at Vijverhof. Some pages show the work of two or more artists, working separately but united on a single sheet through Block’s cutting and pasting. Block curated the watercolors, and paired images and artists to her tastes and interests. For example, Block asked Maria Sybilla Merian and Alida Withoos to each illustrate a species of aquilegia (flore pleno variegate by Withoos and virginiana by Merian), on a single sheet in order to compare artistic skill as well as the plants themselves. In the Bloemenboek, Folio 27 shows two dogtooth violets (dens caninus) on the top of the page, unsigned. Pasted below it on the same page are moths and purple violets, signed and dated to 1637 by an unidentified artist, S.P. Octavus. M.D. As Powell-Warren notes, Block either bought the work at a later date or received it as a gift, since she was only eight years old in 1637. Thus, implausible meetings were created on pages in Block’s collection, inviting comparisons of nature and art, and comparisons of artists.
Powell-Warren also reconstructs possible artistic meetings at Vijverhof. Although only Saftleven consistently dated his contributions, Powell-Warren uses inventories and works traced to Block to suggest that Dirck de Bray (ca. 1635-1694) was there in 1674; Willem de Heer in 1679; Alida Withoos in 1687; Johannes Bronckhorst (1648-1721) in 1692; Maria Sibylla Merian in 1695 and 1696; and Johanna Helena Herolt (1668-1723/30) in 1697 (p. 251). Hundreds of watercolors were made by De Heer, and scores by other artists. Powell-Warren accounts for them to show that artists employed by Block must have stayed at Vijverhof for extended periods and/or made frequent visits, and overlap was inevitable. Powell-Warren is careful in addressing the idea of influence and posits that the artists Block employed worked from the same resources, which included Block’s aviary, insect collection, gardens, and existing watercolors. These shared resources, in turn influenced their artistic production (p. 253).
Block was clearly part of the Dutch elite: she had the means to build and augment Vijverhof over a span of thirty-four years. She commissioned a portrait medal, and artists to draw and paint plants from her gardens and she entertained multiple other elites from Dutch society at Vijverhof. Powell-Warren provides tantalizing information about similar women – neighbors even – of Block, including Magdalena Poulle, and of little-known amateur artist Alida Withoos, whose family is the focus of the recent book Ander licht op Withoos: drie generaties Withoos.[4] These are female figures about whom I for one, would love to know more; particularly, I wonder also about artists such as Withoos or Saftleven, who, while many art historians may recognize their names, did not have the means or cultural capital to self-fashion as Block did. And yet, they clearly played important roles in many elites’ self-fashioning. This book is a timely contribution, and a jumping off point for more examination of the dynamics across and between classes that would be of great interest to social and economic historians, as well as art historians.
Dr. Elizabeth Sutton
Associate Professor
University of Northern Iowa
NOTES:
[1] T. Jones, ed., Women artists in early modern courts, Amsterdam, 2021; E. Sutton, ed., Women artists and patrons in the Netherlands, 1500-1700, Amsterdam, 2019 and M. Moffit Peacock, Heroines, harpies, and housewives: Imagining women of consequence in the Dutch Golden Age, Leiden, 2020.
[2] L. Nochlin, ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’, ARTnews (January 1971).
[3] ‘(Plusieurs especes (sic) de Fleurs dessinées d’apres le Naturel’.
[4] A. Boersma and M. Kolk, Ander licht op Withoos: drie generaties Withoos, Amersfoort 2021.
CITE AS:
E. Sutton, ‘Review of: Gender and self-fashioning at the intersection of art and science: Agnes Block, botany, and networks in the Dutch 17th century by Catherine Powell-Warren,’ Oud Holland Reviews, September 2024.