THE LAND-YACHT OF 1603

A masterful huge illustration of a unique event in Dutch history

After Jacques de Gheyn II, engraved by Willem van Swanenburg
Copper engraving in 3 plates, each 54 x 42 cm, together 54 x 125.5 cm.

Along the top border of the print a two-line caption:

CVRRVS VELIFERI ILLVSTRISSIMI PRINCIPIS MAVRITII VOLITANTES DVABVS HORIS SCHEVERINA A PETTEMVM AD QVATVORDECIM MILLIARIA HOLLANDICA, QVAE SINGVLA IVSTAE HORAE EXCEDVNT

[The sailing cars of the most illustrious Prince Maurits, which in the space of two hours swept from Scheveningen to Petten, covering 14 Dutch miles, each of which requires a full hour of travel]

The print is signed at lower left of centre IDGheyn Inuentor and at lower right of centre CISwanenburch sculp. On stone at lower centre a dedication to Prince Maurits by Jacques de Gheyn.

Jacques de Gheyn’s large, three-plate engraving of the Sailing Car or Land Yacht tells its first expedition of Prince Maurits along the coast of Holland. The print is the only documentation that remains of the sailing car’s two-hour test ride, which took place in the spring of 1602 and ran along the beach for 14 Dutch miles. The car was invented as a curiosity, on Prince Maurits instigation, by Simon Stevin, mathematician and engineer to the prince. Like a sailboat with wheels, the car was intended to carry men across land in a vehicle powered by wind. With a favourable south-westerly wind that day, it apparently reached high speeds. As we see in Willem van Swanenburgh’s engraving, two sailing cars were actually built, the large one which made its test run on this occasion and a smaller prototype that had apparently been tested before.

According to the text, 27 participants accompanied the Prince Maurits that day, including Ulrich of Holstein, brother of Christian IV of Denmark, Prince Frederik Hendrik, Paul Choart de Buzanval, the French ambassador in The Hague, Hugo Grotius, and it is assumed , Jacques de Gheyn, who possibly sketched some figures on the print from life.

The print appeared for the first time in 1603 and was published jointly by Hendrick Hastens and Christoffel van Sichem. Jacques de Gheyn was paid 70 guilders in 1603 for coloured impressions of the prints by the States General, but he was not in charge of the distribution of the print. The popular engraving had a long history of reprinting and copying through the first half of the 17th century. The plates were reissued in 1612 by Van Sichem and Dirck Pietersz. Voskuyl, with the addition of the large blank cartouches on either side of the sailing car filled with letterpress text. Some time later, Hendrick Hondius, print publisher in The Hague, obtained the plates and filled the cartouches with engraved text in Latin and French. Claes Jansz. Visscher finally reprinted the plates in 1652, following Hondius’s death in 1650.

Condition

Dark and even imprint of the copperplates. Wide margins. Here in the 1652 re-issue by Claes Janszoon Visscher. Pristine condition.

Literature

Frederick Muller, Hist. Platen 1157 a-d
Atlas Van Stolk 1106
A. Eijffinger, ‘Zin en Beeld’. Enige kanttekeningen bij twee historieprenten’. In: Oud Holland 93 (1979) 251-269
Dawn of Golden Age. Northern Netherlandish Art 1580-1620. (Ger Luijten e.a. eds.). Amsterdam Rijksmuseum / Zwolle Waanders Uitgevers, 1993, nr. 209.
Hollstein, Vol. XXIX, nr. 27.
The New Hollstein. The De Gheyn Family. Rotterdam 2000, Part II, nr. 172.