Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein  (1717-1747); François van Bleyswijck (1671-1746) [engraver].

Jacobus Elisa Joannes Capitein, Africaansche moor.

Leiden, Abraham Kallewier, [ca. 1742].

Engraving on laid paper, 23 x 17 cm (plate mark), 33 x 22.5 cm (sheet).

Portrait of Jacobus Capitein, a Ghanaian who studied theology in the Netherlands, became a Protestant minister, and returned to Ghana as a missionary. An extremely rare Western depiction of a Black scholar, one of only two known images of him made during his lifetime.

He was taken as a child from his Fante parents and then sold as a slave to a Dutch captain. The captain gave him away to a friend who worked for the slave-trading Dutch West India Company, and this man brought the boy to the Netherlands, stripped of his family, his homeland, his language, and his name. They gave him his new name: Capitein, a reference to the man who had taken him from his parents. In The Hague, he received a Dutch education, adapted, and proved to be an excellent student. He was admitted to the esteemed University of Leiden and graduated in theology with a dissertation arguing that, contrary to the claims of many theologians of the time, slavery was not incompatible with Christian liberty. This view, along with his high visibility and his mastery of European language and rhetorical skills, made him a valuable asset for the West India Company. He was sent back by the Company on a mission to Ghana, specifically to the important slave-trading hub on Ghana's coast, Fort St. George in Elmina.

In connection with his mission, his friend Brandyn Ryser commissioned this portrait, made by François van Bleyswijck. Here, Capitein is depicted according to the conventional iconography of a Protestant scholar and minister of his time. However, the caption by Brandyn Ryser immediately reinforces the racial stereotype: an African Moor who, despite his black skin, has a white soul. After noting that Capitein was now an ordained minister in Elmina, the accompanying poem describes his goal there: to make the people "white" by bringing them the Faith. Five years later, in 1747, he passed away.

Recent study has revealed that Capitein should be considered as someone who merely wrote what his benefactors wanted to hear, but as an intellectual in his own right, who through his dissertation sought to pave the way for his return to Africa as a missionary (see Griesel).

This separately issued edition of the portrait by Karrewier is extremely rare. It is not found in the collections of the British Museum or the National Portrait Gallery (UK), nor in the National Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum, the Getty, the Clark, the Walters, or the Art Institute of Chicago. Within the Netherlands, it is held by the Rijksmuseum (RP-P-2020-1933) and the University of Leiden. Another edition, equally rare, of this portrait was published by Philippus Bonk, also in Leiden.

Conditie: in very good condition.

Reference:

FMP 947-a.

Griesel, Jake. "Paving the Way for Dutch Colonial Missions: Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein (c. 1717–1747) and His Defense of Slavery in Context". Journal of Early Modern History 26.1-2 (2022): 59-78.