NS Vol 7 No 1-2 (December 2001)

Commemorative family medals during the DEIC[1] period

by Robert A Laing of Colington[2]

THERE is an interesting phenomenon found in previous centuries in the Netherlands and areas within her sway of influence. This was the custom of presenting commemorative medals[3] (familiepenningen) to record the highlights of family life for posterity. These medals were made to mark important family events, from the cradle to the grave.[4] The majority of extant medals relate to weddings and wedding anniversaries. A fairly large number were presented as gifts for family and friends who participated in the last rites of a loved one.[5] The practice seems to have been typically Dutch, with a more limited usage in the protestant cities of Northern Germany.[6]

These commemorative medals fall into three major categories:

Baptismal and birth medals

Betrothal and wedding medals (including wedding anniversaries)

Death and burial medals.

There are some minor categories, which include friendship and birthday medals. There is even a known instance of a medal made to mark a divorce.[7] A study of these medals is of importance far beyond the closed circle of medal collectors. Art historians, iconographers, genealogists and heralds can all benefit from such investigation. The art historian can observe changes in style and symbolism over time. Portraits and busts are of interest to the iconographers. Genealogical information concerning births, marriages and deaths can be found. For the student of heraldry there is a wealth of coats of arms in the styles of the various periods.[8] The high incidence of coats of arms on the medals evinces the Dutch love of heraldry.

There is a close correlation between numismatics and heraldry, similar to the relationship between heraldry and sigillography. In both cases, one science reflects and supports the other. Coins and medals are often a source of heraldic information. It is not unusual to find coats of arms on medallions in cases where there are no pertinent seals for the period. In return numismatics benefits from the science of heraldry.[9] The presence of a coat of arms can greatly facilitate the task of dating and identifying coins and medallions.

Doctor Bemolt van Loghum Slaterus in his Nederlandse Familie-penningen tot 1813 catalogued nearly 1 600 medals from the period 1573-1813. Several of these had a direct or indirect link with the period of Dutch Administration at the Cape 1652-1795. For example, there was a medal struck to mark the death, in the East Indies on 18 January 1677 of Joan van Riebeeck, the first Commander of the Cape of Good Hope.[10]

Welz mentions several general medals, and illustrates two family medals from the Dutch period in his work on Cape Silver and Silversmiths. However, he comments that the “existence of a medal bearing a Cape maker’s mark has not yet been established”.[11] One of the medals in the collection of the SA Cultural History Museum in Cape Town<, “was probably made to commemorate the wedding of Coenraad Visser and Catharina Everts at the Cape on 5 August 1685”. One side has pictorial engravings, legends, a monogram and the year 1685. The other has allegorical emblems and further inscriptions. The source of this attribution seems to have been D Bax who, after searching the Cape marriage registers of the period for couples with the relevant initials found in the monogram, came to the conclusion that they were the most likely couple.[12]

The second medal was that marking the death of Joan Bax, “genaamt van Heerentalswho died 29 June and was buried in Cape Town on 4 July 1678.[13] This medal has the arms of Bax on the one side with a legend detailing the event on the other. It is interesting to note that the coat of arms of Bax does not appear in any of the heraldic literature in South Africa. Cornelis Pama wrote an article in Historia about the coats of arms of the Commanders, Governors and Commissioners-General at the Cape.[14] It was written to explain a stained glass window in the building housing the offices of the Dutch Consul General in Cape Town. This window depicted the shields of arms of all those covered by the title and it seems likely that Pama also undertook the heraldic research. Pama gave him as “Johan Bax. Goewerneur 1676-1678. Wapen onbekend.”[15] In a footnote he mentioned that there were several families with this name in the Netherlands, with different arms. However, he could not establish to which of these families the Governor belonged. The writer saw this window in September 1998 and the arms of Bax now appear featuring only the three gourds, which appear in the first quarter of the arms that follow. The arms on the medal are: Quarterly 1^st and 4^th three gourds, 2^nd and 3^rd per fess in chief a lion passant and in base three barrulets wavy; on an inescutcheon per fess a lion passant in chief. Above the shield is a Count’s coronet. No special significance should be seen in this as coronets were assumed at will. “By 1789 [the Comte de] Mirabeau complained that, as a true gentleman, he had to have a ducal coronet engraved on his signet ring, since any commoner used a count's coronet.”[16]

At the age of 32, Bax married Aletta Hinloopen, daughter of the Merchant-Prince Jacob Frans Hinloopen. “Appropriate to his elevated status as the consort of a Hinlopen [sic], he had soon after the wedding added the suffix ‘Van Herenthals’ [sic] to his own good name of Bax which made it even sound better than that of his wife and, moreover, was a tribute to his father Maurits who, while settled in s’Hertogenbosch at the time of Johan’s birth, actually hailed from Herenthals in Flanders where his family had occupied a respected social position.”[17]

Another medal with a definite Cape connection is that of Cornelia Six who died unmarried there 21 May 1681.[18] She was the sister-in-law of Simon van der Stel who arrived at the Cape in 1679. Her position in his household at the Cape is unknown (her sister Johanna Jacoba did not accompany her husband and children to the Cape and it seems that ‘Governor’ Simon never sent her any money).[19] This medal has Cornelia’s portrait on one side.[20] Dr Anna Boeseken found a genealogy in the Library of the University of Amsterdam. In the genealogical description of the families Six and van der Stel, written by Jan Six, there was a depiction of a silver medallion, with a poorly drawn portrait of Cornelia Six. One saw a stout woman with long earrings and a necklace that drew more attention than the face with its friendly, if unattractive, features. “Definitely not the work of an artist.” Further it stated that she was unmarried when she died.[21] The quartered arms of Six and Hinloopen appear on the other side of the medal.

Rietstap gives two variants of the arms of Hinlopen [sic] of Amsterdam. The first is: Azure, a chevron Or, between three trefoils Argent; on a chief Gules an estoile Or. The second is: Quarterly, 1st Gules, an estoile Or; 2nd Azure, a decrescent Argent; 3rd Azure, a chevron Or, between three trefoils Argent; 4th Or, three pallets Sable.[22] The latter represent Sara Hinloopen’s arms on the medal commemorating her Golden Wedding Anniversary with Arendt van der Waeyen on 15 May 1760.[23] On the medal of Cornelia Six the arms are: Quarterly 1st & 4th Azure, two crescents in chief and an estoile in base, all Argent; 2nd & 3rd Per fess Gules and Azure, in chief an estoile Or, in base a chevron Or between three trefoils Argent. The arms in the first and fourth quarters are those of the family Six.[24] Those in the second and third quarters are similar to the first variant of the arms of Hinloopen given above. Here the chief is extended to the fess line and the arms are thus the dexter side of the second variant.

Commemorative medals were popular with the Hinloopen and Six families.[25] It was through these two families that Joan Bax and Simon van der Stel were related. They were married to first cousins. Bax married Aletta Hinloopen and van der Stel married Johanna Jacoba Six.[26] Mistress Bax’s father was Frans Jacobus Hinloopen the brother of Cathalina Hinloopen, who married Willem Six.[27] The only known Van der Stel medal is that for Hillegonda Cranendonk who died 18 November 1708. She was the wife of Adriaan van der Stel, second son of Simon and Johanna Jacoba Six.[28] Adriaan farmed at the Cape before entering the service of the DEIC at the Cape, eventually becoming Councillor for India and Governor of Amboina.

Although Welz stated that no medal bearing a Cape maker’s mark had then yet been established, it is possible that a Cape silversmith made both the Bax and Six medals. There are many points of similarity in the engraving of the legends.[29] The question arises about who might have commissioned these medals and perhaps also two blue sarcophagi mentioned by Valentyn.[30] The Van der Stels only arrived in 1679. It is not known how long the widow Bax, née Hinloopen, remained at the Cape. Her family had a tradition of medals. If she was still there in 1681 then she would seem to be the most likely candidate. What had been done for her husband was also done for her cousin. Was the second sarcophagus intended for her? 

There are commemorative medals for individuals who may have been related to Cape gubernatorial families. Among these appear Swellengrebel, Van Aerssen and Van der Graaf[f].[31] There are also medals for DEIC officials (or their spouses) that spent some time at the Cape. There are examples of four heraldic medals commemorating the deaths of the two wives of Rycklof van Goens as well as medals commemorating the deaths of two Governors-General of the East Indies, namely Joan Maetsuycker and Johannes Camphuijs.[32] Other examples exist that could have had a Cape connection but where insufficient genealogical data was available.

It was previously mentioned that commemorative medals are of value to more people than just to medal collectors. One medal in Nederlandse Familiepenningen was most useful in resolving an uniquely South African heraldic problem. This is the medal struck for the Silver wedding anniversary on 17 June 1729 of Egidius van den Bempden and Aegie Hooft.[33] The arms of van den Bempden appear in the Bell-Krynauw collection in the South African Library, Cape Town (Accession MSB69).[34] The only connection with the Cape is that these arms appeared with seven others on what was presumably the lost tomb or hatchment of Jan Willem Cloppenburg. Bell must have taken his information from some funerary monument as he gives the dates as “Natus 27 Augt. 1714 Obiit 30 May 1770”.[35] He gives the blazon (verbal description) as: “pppale [sic] gules & sable dexter a tower, and sinister 5 turrets, or, on a chief of the last a demi 2 headed eagle displayed of the 2nd”. This would be Party per pale Gules and Sable, dexter a tower and sinister 5 turrets, all Or; on a chief also Or a demi double-headed eagle displayed Sable.[36] It would seem that Bell made his drawings from his notes and that when he came to draw the arms he omitted the top part with the eagle.

When Pama came to write Die wapens van die ou Afrikaanse families he copied the mistake Bell made in the drawing. The coat of arms of Van den Bempden was thus reduced by a third.[37] However, it is obvious that Pama worked with Bell’s blazons before producing Heraldry of South African families. He repeats his error from Die Wapens . . . The top third of the shield omitted in Bell’s drawing either metamorphoses into a new coat of arms or it is an attempt to correct an earlier error. The result is not clear. “Bell also mentions (but did not draw) on a chief or a demi double-headed eagle displayed sable.”[38] The commemorative medal marking the silver wedding anniversary shows the shield unmutilated, all parts correctly reunited and in accordance with Bell’s blazon as given in his notes.

It can thus be seen that a study of these commemorative family medals is of importance to art historians, iconographers, genealogists and heralds. The limited available examples show what valuable information these medals can reveal to the South African researcher. Iconographers now have a portrait of Cornelia Six to compare with that of her cousin Aletta Bax-Hinloopen as illustrated in Masters of the Castle. There is a wealth of genealogical and heraldic information that can be used to resolve related problems. Unfortunately, the number of medals with a Cape-Dutch connection is very small and one can only speculate whether further examples were lost over time. The majority of those recorded seem to have been found either in open collections or sale catalogues. There may still be others in private hands.