Pieter van Damme - Joseph Eckhel - 1791-6-28

Pieter van Damme, Amsterdam

Pieter van Damme - Joseph Eckhel - 1791-6-28

FINA IDUnique ID of the page ^ᵖ	13622
InstitutionName of Institution.	Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
InventoryInventory number.	MK 73
AuthorAuthor of the document.	Pieter van Damme
RecipientRecipient of the correspondence.	Joseph Eckhel
Correspondence dateDate when the correspondence was written: day - month - year .	June 28, 1791
PlacePlace of publication of the book, composition of the document or institution.	Amsterdam ^{52° 22' 21.94" N, 4° 53' 36.96" E}
Associated personsNames of Persons who are mentioned in the annotation.	Christian Gottlob Heyne, Siwart Haverkamp, Jeremias David Reuss
LiteratureReference to literature.	Eckhel 17881, Haverkamp 17392, Dekesel - Dekesel-De Ruyck 2022, p. 589, note 533
KeywordNumismatic Keywords ^ᵖ	Plagiarism , Engraved Plates , Book Production , Göttingen
LanguageLanguage of the correspondence	Dutch
External LinkLink to external information, e.g. Wikpedia ^ᵖ

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Grand documentOriginal passage from the "Grand document".

-Letter of 28 June 1791 (from Amsterdam): On 28 June 1791, van Damme defended himself and his book against Eckhel’s accusations. He admitted to re-using plates of Havercamp’s three-volume work Algemeene Histori for his book, but stressed that they had first appeared not in a purely numismatic context, but in a historical work. Moreover, he underlined that his re-use of the plates was justified by the fact that he had acquired the most important of the Dutch private collections from which Havercamp had taken the coins pictured on his plates. Finally, van Damme pointed out that the last batch of 63 plates in his book had not been printed anywhere else before – which is true: they had been prepared by Havercamp for volume 4 of his work, which was never published [...] In his letter of 28 June 1791, van Damme also challenged Eckhel to prove that more than 12 copies of his Recueil des médailles des Rois had been produced: obviously, Eckhel had accused van Damme of having printed a lot more, and of having falsely claimed that the book was so rare, in order to be able to charge a higher price. Van Damme, on the contrary, forcefully asserted that he had the copperplates destroyed in his presence after the printing of 12 copies. He left it to Eckhel’s discretion whether he wanted to return or discard his copy, offering a choice of ancient coins in return for the five ancient coins paid by Eckhel for the Recueil. Whatever option Eckhel chose: the book currently cannot be located in Vienna anymore. Obviously, Eckhel had threatened to go public with his accusations, and van Damme implored him not to do it; he also offered to pay four ducats for Eckhel’s Choix des pierres gravées that he had received Apart from arrogant remarks about the nobility and prestige of his family, this letter of 28 June 1791 also contains information that proved important in our quest for locating a copy of van Damme’s elusive doctored book in a public library: he refers to a visit by Jeremias David Reuss (1750–1837), professor at Göttingen university and librarian of the university library, to his house in Amsterdam in 1790, in order to view his collections, and mentions that he gave him a copy of his book for the Göttingen library, at Reuss’ insistence. Van Damme was very proud of receiving a graceful letter of thanks from Christian Gottlob Heyne (1729–1812) for it; Heyne also published a short review of the book. The Göttingen copy was the basis for our bibliographical analysis of the book, see the following part,(Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, MK 73; Dekesel - Dekesel-De Ruyck 2022, p. 589, note 53)

References

^ Eckhel, Joseph (1788), Choix des pierres gravées du cabinet imperial des antiques, Vienna.
^ Haverkamp, Sigebert (1739), Algemeene histori der zaaken in Asie, Afrike en Europe, en in derzelver koningryken, landschappen, staaten en steden, zedert het ophouden der fabel-eeuw, tot op de heerschappy van Karel den Grooten, en tot den tyd, doorgaan de Middel-Eeuwe genaamd, voorgevallen. Derde deel, behelzende de histori der ryken en landschappen van Asie, en voornaamelijk van Pontus, Kappadokie, Bithynie, Pergamus, Galatie, Karie, Paphlagonie, Kilikie, Arabie, Syrie, Kommagene, enz. Uit de overgebelevene werken der oude schryveren saamgesteld, en met duizenden historipenningen verrykt en opgeheldert, Den Haag
^ Dekesel, Christian Edmond - Dekesel-De Uyt, Yvette M. M. (2022), "The Unholy Relationship Between a Numismatic Scholar and a Wheeler Dealer: Joseph Eckhel, Pieter van Damme and the Peculiar Recueil des médailles des Rois", in Bernhard Woytek and Daniela Williams (eds.), Ars critica numaria. Joseph Eckhel (1737–1798) and the Transformation of Ancient Numismatics, Vienna, p. 583-623