'Can you paint all the known planets: Earth, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter? Can you put them in the background of my official portrait, and don’t forget to use symbolic vegetables to represent my Vegetable Enterprise Company,’ said the corpulent stranger, whose nose looked remarkably like a ripe turnip.
Han Delety sighed. He’d had some rather difficult requests for paintings in his short career, but this one was the most unreasonable. His mind went blank and he mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. Would he be allowed to paint the truth as he saw it? Did the Merchant Aloys de Vries realise how ugly he was? Would de Vries pay him when he saw his portrait? Even a cleaned-up version of Mijnheer de Vries’ face would frighten the rest of his clientele.
Han had to think quickly. Any attempt to paint ‘old turnip-nose’ might ruin his career before it actually got started.
‘Why don’t I paint a small still life of a cabbage and all that to represent your wealth and Christian piety? A portrait of you, with the greatest respect Mijnheer, would be frowned upon by the Church. The Elders might consider it to be a sign of great vanity. But a deeply symbolic painting, suggesting the inevitable decay of earthly forms, framed by a properly dignified Classical setting, let’s say…an ancient Roman niche? That wouldn’t cause any offence. How does that sound? The Church Elders would approve of it. We could use all kinds of cabbages and a cucumber if you like. Brussels sprouts could represent the planets.’ He said carefully. ‘And wouldn’t the butterfly symbolise the grace of God? Hazelnuts are a well-known symbol of frugality. The apple represents the temptation of Eve, and the pear could be an allusion to your dear wife’s proven fertility. You do have five living children and that is a miracle in itself. Would you like a scull on a pedestal? It will help you meditateon the fleeting nature of time and remind you that the world is nothing but vanity, vanity.’
‘Oh no, not a scull, my wife wouldn’t allow it!’ cried the turnip man. ‘I like the idea of cabbages, it will show our gratitude for God’s abundance, but I don’t want any flies or worms on them like I’ve seen in some of your other paintings. I want something that will show my neighbours how much we are worth, without seeming to boast about it. Yes, I want a sober painting with a lot of secret messages. When can you finish it?’
‘If you could allow me a small advance on the final price, I could buy my oil and canvas, and grind the colours this very day, Mijnheer.’
The turnip man’s eyes turned even smaller and greedier. ‘Now, about the price of the finished painting, it would depend on how big it was, wouldn’t it?' he said. ‘I want a little one; no sense in paying too much for a piece of art.’
‘Of course, Mijnheer, but one has to consider the time involved in painting it, and the complexity of the symbolic images. Shall we say twenty Guilders for the wood panel and my materials, and another forty Guilders for the finished work? It’s is the going rate for small paintings,’ said Han Delety, holding his breath. It was an extraordinary sum of money in those days.
‘Eighty Guilders?’ said the outraged merchant. ‘Are you mad? Isn’t that rather a lot for a small painting of a cabbage, an apple, a pear, some sprouts on strings, some nuts and a small pickle?’
‘With all due respect, sir, you are paying for all my years of experience as a still life painter as well as my extensive knowledge of the proper, holy symbolism,’ said Han, crossing his fingers behind his back.
‘What about my portrait? If I buy the still life, do I get a discount on that, at least?’ asked the merchant.
‘Oh, I would love to do it for you. But honestly, there are two very famous painters who specialise in prosperous merchants and dignitaries of your class. There’s Rembrandt of course, but he doesn’t have the right finesse, and his backgrounds are too dark. Now, Frans Hals… Well, he’s the only one I know who could do your face justice.
‘Do you really think so?’ asked the turnip man. He adjusted his thinning hair and smiled proudly into the small mirror in Han Delety’s reception room.
‘I can assure you, there’s no other genius who could capture your unique qualities on canvas as he can! He lives in a little village close to Haarlem. Haven’t you heard of him, sir?’
‘Who hasn’t heard of Frans Hals? Everyone in Amsterdam knows his name!’ The merchant crossed his fingers behind his back as well. His face turned even more purplish because he told a lie. Then he ostentatiously poured twenty Guilders out of his velvet purse and let them fall one by one, upon the table.
‘Of course I will be coming here once a week to check on the progress,’ he said.
‘I’ve no problem with that,’ replied the artist, fervently hoping the opposite.
Mijnheer De Vries did come to the atelier, as often as twice a week, and he made a nuisance of himself by trying to change the composition and arguing about the symbolism of cabbages, or the meaning of sprouts and apples. And at the last minute, he insisted upon changing the colours to match his new Persian rug. Eventually, he paid the rest of the artist’s fee and rubbed his hands, delighted at his great bargaining skills for the price of an original Delety painting.
When the Merchant de Vries wasn’t at home, his long-suffering wife covered the little painting with a silk cloth of gold. She despised it nearly as much as she despised her fat husband’s incessant bragging to their guests about how much he had cheated the poor little artist out of his fee. It made her seethe when he explained to them that she was the pear, a fine ripe pear of womanly fecundity, the loving wife and mother hen to his brood of children.
‘One of these days,’ she whispered to herself, ‘I’ll wait until he is fast asleep, then I’ll get my sewing scissors and remove his fine ripe pear.’
‘Your wife is looking particularly serene tonight,’ remarked a portly man, who had made a fortune in the Indonesian Colonies, by importing nutmeg. He was sitting next to Merchant de Vries at one of his interminable dinner parties.
‘My lovely spouse has so much to be grateful for!’ replied Willem de Vries as he tore a tender leg from the roasted chicken in front of him and popped most of it into his mouth. The juice ran over his chins and stained the damask tablecloth.
His wife smiled sweetly at him and delicately pushed her plate away. She folded her hands demurely in her lap. No one noticed that she had made the sign of her scissors with two slender fingers.
Snip!
Snip!
Snip!
Snip!
Koopman’s Ballen (Merchant’s Balls)
Ingredients:
300g Minced Beef or Lamb
3 eggs
2 cups or more of fine dried Bread Crumbs
1 Tsp. Tomato Puree
A bag of Brussels sprouts steamed for 8 minutes and put in cold water to retain their colour
1 large Onion, roughly chopped and two small cloves of Garlic, finely chopped
2 Tsp. dried Thyme and Salt and Pepper to taste
1 Glass of White Wine
Add ½ a cup of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, one large, chopped onion and a clove of garlic which have been lightly fried, but not brown. Add one egg and the tomato puree to meat, mix well. If the mixture is too wet, add more crumbs until it has the texture of meatloaf. Wrap a thin layer this mixture around each steamed Brusselssprout to make a round ball. Roll each ball in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs. Put them in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to firm them up. Fry your balls in oil until golden and the meat is cooked through. Make a simple tomato sauce with a medium can of chopped peeled tomatoes, a glass of white wine, and a bit of garlic andonions, some thyme, and lightly season it with salt and pepper. Serve it quickly before someone decides to use it as a subject for the next still life painting.
Serves 4 painters, if you provide plenty of bread, but don’t allow them to draw on the tablecloth.