Briefwisseling. Deel 6: 1663-1687

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7231. Aan de prinses van Oranje. (K.A.)

Humbly shewes the whole and universall nation, both male and female, of the most famous and mighty Empire of China, to the number of a great many more millions of people then your skilfulst arithmetician were able to summe up in a summerday, that to their extreme joy and exultation being informed, how a certain publiq peece of proof and demonstration of their national skill and industry in gilt and painted lackwork, in form of a royal skreen, having had the great happines to fall into Your Royal Highness noble hands¹⁾, to their inconsolable greef and mor[t]ification, they have lately been told, how some most ignorant, barbarous and malitious people, mooved onely by meere envie and jalousie of our ancient oriental China honour, should have so farre prevailled with Your Highn.^s renowned sweet, mild and gracious disposition, as to persuade her to lett the same illustrious momument sawed, divided, cut, clift and slit asunder and reduced to a heap of monstrous shivers and splinters, and all this desolation to no higher purpose then to see the wals of some miserable cabinet decked and adorned forsooth with our unhappy ruines. Which enterprize no understanding artist being able for his life to performe, without mayming, laming and totaly spoyling the most curious, skilfull and artificial drawings and limninge of that incomparable pictor, by deforming faces and all other limbs and members of it, so that, many of them chancing to stand upside downe, legs and feet will meet with eyes, noses, knees and elbows by so horrible a confusion all metamorphosed into a most ridiculous mingelmangle, and - which is most bitterly to be lamented - with dissolving, turning, severing and disjoining the noble collection of those manyfold chosen and selected characters, containing in our excellent Asiatic language the wittiest speeches, proverbs, emblems, parables, paradoxes and other higher mysteries, could be found such incontestable testimonies of our nations high and transcendent wisdom above all other people of the world, in the very center of which we know - in despight of your foolish cosmographers - our Empire situated from all eternity²⁾. We return humbly and most fervently to begg, it may please Your Royal Highn.^s, if so inhumane a resolution may have been conceaved, that it, may it be, as a monstruous embryon, [be] smothered in its birth and destroyed before. And shall this be an action perfectly worth of your great and generous genius, and most properly becoming your cleare and perspicacious witt and judgement, of both which a constant fame hath blown over the noyse and notice even to these remote parts. Wherefore [we] cannot doubt but so eminent a spirit will most wisely consider, how your High.^s and your nation be loath to endure the same sort of scandal, if a peece of your best - though in comparison of ours but poore and miserable European - pictures did fall in our hands, and we came to have the boldness to cut it in peeces and abuse and dispose of it in the like shamefull a manner as is said above, and that consequently will not suffer anything to be done to us what you would not have done to yourself and yours, no more than if a peece of our delicate tapestrie silk and golden painted all over with many rich figures

1) De Prinses hield veel van Chineesche dingen.

2) Het laatste gedeelte van den zin is niet duidelijk.

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of men and beasts, were not found unfit to the proportion of some bare wall, that you would resolve to make yourselfe a training gowne or a petticoat of it, though indeed you could never be clothed in a more stately apparel.

In conclusion, high and mighty Princesse, if your humble petitioners may be so happy as to obtayne from your royal goodnesse a favorable answer at the foot of this their just and reasonable demands, and your Highn. will vouchsafe to command me that the right and exact measures may be sent them of any such stately and princely building, you may intend to finish, either of chambers, halls, galeries, cabinets or any other kind of honorable lodgings, they will endeavour to procure upon their word and faith and undertake that all and every peece thereunto belonging, ready cutt and shaped, gilt and painted, guilt (?) and prepared to the purpose here within our Empire, shall be speedily sent you over by the first of your Batavia fleets parting for your kingdom of Holland, when your Highn. may be assured [that] never hath been or shall be seene a more glorious and miraculous peece of China work. Finally they do oblige themself to send your Highn. with the first a true and legal interpretation of these noble characters expressed in your sayd precious skreene, whereby at least you are to acquire a something more avantageous opinion of the most high and divine Empire of China and its natifs, then it appeareth you have had of them to this day. 17 Sept. 1685¹⁾, noctibus ab arthritide insomnibus.

Jugeant que la requeste cy joincte, que nos derniers vaisseaux des Indes ont apportée en original, concernoit les interests de V.A.R.^le de trop près pour luy demeurer cachée, je me suis mis en debvoir de le traduire de la langue tartare chinoise en la belle que j'ay observé que V.A. ayme mieux à parler qu'aucune des autres, que toutefois à nostre grand estonnement elle entend et parle toutes avec mesme grace et facilité. Je la supplie en toute soumission que ma bonne intention puisse este aggreée ..... A la Haye, ce 27 Sept. 1685.

1) Boven de minuut staat: 21 Sept. - Uit een ‘Mémoire pour Zeelhem’, door Huygens geschreven, blijkt, dat de Prinses zijn brief heeft beantwoord.