Cornelis de Bruijn (also spelled Cornelius de Bruyn; 1652 - 1726/7) was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 artist and traveler. He made two large tours and published illustrated books with his observations of people, buildings, plants and animals.

Biography

De Bruijn was born in The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

.

During his first tour, he visited Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, where he became a member of the Bentvueghels

Bentvueghels

The Bentvueghels were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent .-Activities:...

 with the nickname Adonis, which is how he signed the bentbrief of Abraham Genoels II

Abraham Genoels II

-Biography:According to Arnold Houbraken, who devoted 10 pages to him in his compilation of artist biographies called the Schouwburg, he was a good portrait and landscape painter who was taught drawing by Jacob Backereel in Antwerp and Perspective by Nicolaes Fierlants in Den Bosch...

. He travelled in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and climbed to the top of a pyramid

Pyramid

A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...

 where he left his signature. De Bruijn made secretly drawings of Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. His drawings of Palmyra

Palmyra

Palmyra was an ancient city in Syria. In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert...

 are copies. De Bruijn reached Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 and stayed among the Dutch merchants in Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 and Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. From 1684 he worked in Venice with the painter Johann Carl Loth

Johann Carl Loth

Johann Carl Loth was a German Baroque painter, born in Munich but active most of his life in Venice.-Biography:He is also called Johann Karl, Karel, Carlotto, and Carlo Lotti. According to Houbraken he was one of three grand masters of art called "Karel" Johann Carl Loth (1632 – October 6, 1698)...

, returning in 1693 to The Hague, where he sold his souvenirs. In 1698 he published his book with drawings, which was a success and was translated in several languages. Two examples have colored illustrations, the first color prints in history. Among his drawings were the first pictures of the interior of the Great Pyramid

Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact...

 and Jerusalem that became known in Europe.

In 1701 he headed for Archangelsk. During his second tour he visited the Samoyeds

Nenets people

The Nenets are an indigenous people in Russia. According to the latest census in 2002, there are 41,302 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Nenets Autonomous Okrug...

 in northern Russia. In Moscow he became acquainted with emperor Peter the Great

Peter I of Russia

Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...

: de Bruijn painted his nieces, and the paintings were sent to possible candidates for marriage.

In the late April 1703, De Brujin left Moscow along with the party of an Armenian merchants from Isfahan whose name he recorded as Jacob Daviedof.
De Bruijin and the Armenians sailed down the Moscow River, the Oka

Oka River

Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...

 and the Volga

Volga River

The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...

, eventually reaching Astrakhan

Astrakhan

Astrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the left bank of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of below the sea level. Population:...

. Thanks to de Bruijn's short stopover in Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...

 during the Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 holidays, we now have his description of that major center of the Russian Volga trade as it existed in 1703, with its Kremlin

Kremlin

A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...

, stone churches, and a lively bar (kabak) scene.

Leaving the borders of the Russian state, de Brujin arrived to Persia, where he made drawings of towns like Isfahan and Persepolis

Persepolis

Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...

 (1704–1705). He continued to Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

 and returned to Persia, Russia, and ultimately the Netherlands.

His drawings of Persepolis, a city destroyed by Alexander the Great, caused a sensation. The mayor of Amsterdam Nicolaes Witsen

Nicolaes Witsen

Nicolaas or Nicolaes Witsen was mayor of Amsterdam thirteen times, between 1682-1706. In 1693 he became administrator of the VOC. In 1689 he was extraordinary-ambassador to the English court, and became Fellow of the Royal Society. In his free time he was cartographer, maritime writer, and an...

 and a member of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 probably asked him to draw the city famous for its 40 columns. For a century, they were the best prints available to western scholars. De Bruijn was accused of plagiarism

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...

 and his second book, Reizen over Moskovie was not such a success. From Amsterdam he fled to Vianen.

De Bruijn died at Utrecht

Utrecht (city)

Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

. It is not known when and where he was buried.

De Bruijn, who had read every Greek and Latin source he had been able to obtain, displays a convincing knowledge of subjects, at times going into the humorous. In Persia, he obtained a copy of Firdausi

Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi was a highly revered Persian poet. He was the author of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran and related societies.The Shahnameh was originally composed by Ferdowsi for the princes of the Samanid dynasty, who were responsible for a revival of Persian cultural traditions after the...

's Shahnamê, which he summarized and made accessible to the west.

Works

• Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de vermaardste Deelen van Klein Asia (1698)

• Corneille le Brun, Voyage au Levant (French translation, 1700)
• Corneille le Brun, A Voyage to the Levant: or Travels in the Principal Parts of Asia Minor (English translation, 1702)
  • Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie (1711)
• Voyages de Corneille le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes Occidentales (French translation, 1718)
• Corneille le Brun, Voyage to the Levant and Travels into Moscovy, Persia, and the East Indies (English translation, 1720)
• C. le Brun, An Abstract of M.C. Le Brun's Travels through Russia (1722)
• Puteshestvie cerez Moskouviju Kornelija de Brujna (Russian excerpt 1873)
  • Aenmerkingen Over de Printverbeeldingen van de Overblijfzelen van het Oude Persepolis (1714)

Other English translations appeared in 1737, 1759, and 1873.

Sources

• J.W. Drijvers, J. de Hond, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (eds.): "Ik hadde de nieusgierigheid". De reizen door het Nabije Oosten van Cornelis de Bruijn (ca.1652-1727) (1997 Leiden and Leuven)
• J. de Hond, "Cornelis de Bruijn (1652-1726/27). A Dutch Painter in the East", in: G.J. van Gelder, E. de Moor (eds.), Eastward Bound. Dutch Ventures and Adventures in the Middle East (1994 London/Atlanta), pp. 51–81
• G. Jurriaans-Helle (ed.), Cornelis de Bruijn. Voyages from Rome to Jerusalem and from Moscow to Batavia (Catalogue of an exposition in the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, 1998)

External links

• Livius.org: Cornelis de Bruijn
• Cornelis de Bruijn, traveller and painter
• The Discoverer of Persepolis: Cornelis de Bruijn
• Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus, Metelino, Stanchio, etc., mitsgaders de voornaamste steden van Aegypten, Syrien en Palestina : verrijkt met meer als 200 kopere konstplaaten ..., alles door den autheur selfs na het leven afgetekend (1698) in Dutch
• http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/bijzcoll/2010-1019-200238/UUindex.htmlCornelis de Bruins reizen over Moskovië, door Persië en Indië : verrykt met driehondert kunstplaten, vertoonende de beroemste lantschappen en steden, ook de byzondere dragten, beesten, gewassen en planten, die daar gevonden worden: voor al derzelver oudheden, en wel voornamentlyk heel uitvoerig, die van het heerlyke en van oudts de geheele werrelt door befaemde Hof van Persepolis, by den Persianen Tchilminar genaemt (1714) in Dutch]