In 2017 Nella Kennedy invited Anne Larsen of Hope College and me to share our knowledge about the seventeenth-century scholar and artist Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678) with students and colleagues. Van Schurman was a phenom in language, philosophy, and theology, as well as in embroidery, music, drawing, engraving, and paper cutting. My late wife, Joke (1945-2020), and I included many of Van Schurman’s paper cuttings in our book Onbekend en ontroerend erfgoed: Tijdsbeelden geknipt door anonieme kleinkunstenaars (Journey Press, 2017).
Anna Maria’s skill was evident when, as a mere child of six, she could make complicated cutouts of many types of figures. Her friend, the poet Cats, does not mention her craft in his extensive account of her many abilities in his Trou-Ringh (wedding ring) of 1637, so we know hers must have been just an occasional pursuit. Only once in her own writing does she mention a paper-cut that she had made herself (noted below).
Anna Maria is a noted pioneer in paper cutting in the Netherlands because some of the papercut specimens in her estate -many of which were gifted to her- have survived over the centuries. One of them is a fine heraldic piece cut for a member of the Van Schurman family. We could prove that it was not made by -or for- Anna Maria but rather by a second cousin who managed her estate; this specimen must have slipped into her inheritance. We discovered some ten other heraldic miniatures in the same style, made around 1700 for dignitaries in the Dutch republic.
Another delicate piece that was kept represents a stylized bush with the letters A and M and a hexagram. We think it was made as a present for her because she was called “the Star of Utrecht,” and one would not honor oneself with such a laurel. It may have been made by a French admirer, Marie Forget, who had it sent to professor Salmasius in Leyden, with the request to forward it to Anna Maria in 1639. Salmasius described it as “une decoupure fort delicate faite à la pointe de ciseau” (a very delicate cut made with scissor point). Salmasius was hesitant to contact the learned mademoiselle because he did not know her. Eventually, he sent her a letter, presumably with the paper cut enclosed, and subsequently, Anna Maria visited him and his family. Appreciating their hospitality, she sent “un petit essay de ma Muse, et de mon ciseau” (a small token of my Muse and of my scissors, 1648).
A third cut, tucked away in her private album, is a magic-or endless- knot, cut from twice-folded paper. In it is a poem written in German, with four verses, each with a refrain. The intent of it can be explained by Anna Maria’s unmarried state. When she was sixteen, her father had asked her on his deathbed not to marry. She promised him, kept her maiden status, and assumed the motto, “My love is crucified,” borrowed from church father Ignatius of Antioch. The poem seems to embrace this view of life, as if Anna Maria were a religious sister. But this poem was actually published in 1649 by German linguist Filip von Zesen, under his own name; he had spent several years in Holland and had come to admire Anna Maria. She was at that time at the height of her activities as a savant and did not tell anybody about this poetic gift. Filip may have cut the paper labyrinth as well; such love knots were at the time common in northern Germany and Denmark but not in the Netherlands. Moreover, we discovered another paper-cut love knot with a worldly poem, written and signed by Von Zesen, in Amsterdam, in 1647. This paper cut, kept in her estate, was, therefore, also made for her, not by her.
Long after Von Zesen’s death, the four-verse poem, with its refrain, “Then, though worldly desire may drive me, my crucified Love prevails,” was recognized as a hymn and incorporated into many hymnbooks in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany. Organists wrote melodies for it, and recently, it was discovered that even J. S. Bach had composed a beautiful choral arrangement for this hymn. Organists, interested in a transcription of Bach’s choral arrangement (no BWV) may request a copy from me at jpverhave@hotmail.com.
By Jan Peter Verhave, Annual Report 2021, p. 55-59.