Maria Moninckx (22 April 1673 (baptised) - 26 February 1757 (buried)) was a Dutch botanical artist and painter, best known for the colour plates she and her father, Jan Moninckx, created and which make up the nine-volume Moninckx Atlas. This was published in the period 1686-1709 and depicted 420 plants from the Hortus Medicus of Amsterdam. She was born in The Hague and died in Amsterdam.
In 1682 Joan Huydecoper II and Jan Commelin took the initiative in establishing a new Hortus Medicus in Amsterdam. It differed from the herb garden at the Binnengasthuis insofar as it also grew ornamental plants and would function as a Hortus Botanicus. Huydecoper was mayor of Amsterdam and had great influence with the Dutch East India Company, while Commelin was a merchant in herbs and pharmaceuticals. Both men were well known as enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardeners. Because of their contacts in the business world and their practical horticultural experience, they received a constant stream of plants, seeds, bulbs and cuttings to be cultivated far from their original habitat.
This led to the creation of one of the richest plant collections in Europe. Plants of commercial value, also potherbs, edible crop plants and medicinal plants, were propagated in the garden for planting elsewhere. An example of this was the coffee plant, which oddly, was not illustrated in the Moninckx Atlas, but became the backbone of the Brazilian coffee industry. In addition many ornamental plants, especially strange and exotic plants, were cultivated. These plants were grown for pure interest, curiosity value and often for further research.
Between 1686 and 1709, Huydecoper and Commelin commissioned 420 large parchment aquarels of plants growing in the Amsterdam garden. The garden did not have a herbarium, and a pictorial record in the form of paintings, would create something of permanent value.
Four very accomplished artists were employed to tackle this extensive project. The lion's share of work was done by Jan Moninckx: 273 sheets bear his signature. Maria Moninckx, his daughter, produced 101 paintings. The other artists were Alida Withoos (13 aquarels) and Johanna Helena Herolt-Graff (daughter of Maria Sibylla Merian) with 2 sheets; 31 aquarels were unsigned. The heraldic arms of Huydecoper and Commelin, painted by Jan Moninckx, were used to decorate volume 1 of the Atlas. In 1749 there was an attempt to expand the collection. This 9th volume consisted of a mere five aquarels, one by Dorothea Storm-Kreps and four by Jan Matthias Cock. The illustrated plants in the first five volumes and part of the sixth, had their names printed in both Latin and Dutch. The Latin names in bold Roman type, and the Dutch names in elegant Gothic calligraphy.
This monumental work is still of great taxonomic, historic, and artistic interest. The aquarels have served as the basis for engravings in the Horti Medici Amstelodamensis rariorum plantarum historia, part 1, by Jan Commelin, appearing in 1697 and part 2, by his cousin Caspar Commelin, in 1701. The famed botanist Carl Linnaeus based the taxonomy for his Species plantarum of 1753 on no fewer than 259 species from the Moninckx Atlas. A recent scanning of the complete work has made the plates and text available on the University of Amsterdam website.
The Moninckx family had a long tradition of being painters and were researched in a book titled De Schildersfamilie Moninckx, published by Abraham Bredius in 1889. Well-known was Gijsbert Moninckx, a member of the Guild of St Lucas in The Hague in 1605. Bredius' book confuses Maria Moninckx with Machteld Moninckx, the widow of Paulus Dinant.
Maria's father was Jan Moninckx, her collaborator on the Moninckx Atlas, and her mother was Ariaentje Pieters. On 18 April 1723 Maria signed a betrothal register in Amsterdam, avowing her intention to marry Martinus de la Ruel. Maria's age was given as 47 years and her place of residence as The Hague, while Martinus was 46 years old and from Amsterdam. Maria's signature in the betrothal register corresponds with her signature on the aquarels of the Moninckx Atlas.
Hortus Botanicus is a botanical garden in the Plantage district of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is one of the world's oldest botanical gardens.
Frederik Ruysch was a Dutch botanist and anatomist. He is known for developing techniques for preserving anatomical specimens, which he used to create dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts. His anatomical preparations included over 2,000 anatomical, pathological, zoological, and botanical specimens, which were preserved by either drying or embalming. Ruysch is also known for his proof of valves in the lymphatic system, the vomeronasal organ in snakes, and arteria centralis oculi. He was the first to describe the disease that is today known as Hirschsprung's disease, as well as several pathological conditions, including intracranial teratoma, enchondromatosis, and Majewski syndrome.
Rachel Ruysch was a Dutch still-life painter from the Northern Netherlands. She specialized in flowers, inventing her own style and achieving international fame in her lifetime. Due to a long and successful career that spanned over six decades, she became the best documented woman painter of the Dutch Golden Age.
Jacob van Loo was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, chiefly active in Amsterdam and, after 1660, in Paris. Van Loo is known for his conversational groupings; particularly his mythological and biblical scenes generally attributed to the genre of History painting. He was especially celebrated for the quality of his nudes to the extent that, during his lifetime, particularly his female figures were said to have been considered superior and more popular than those of his Amsterdam contemporary and competitor Rembrandt. In 1663, three years after fleeing to Paris, Jacob van Loo was accepted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.
Pierre Magnol was a French botanist. He was born in the city of Montpellier, where he lived and worked for most of his life. He became Professor of Botany and Director of the Royal Botanic Garden of Montpellier and held a seat in the Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris for a short while. He was one of the innovators who devised the botanical scheme of classification. He was the first to publish the concept of plant families as they are understood today, a natural classification of groups of plants that have features in common.
Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt was a Prussian-born Dutch botanist. He is considered to be the founding father of Bogor Botanical Garden in Indonesia.
Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein was a military man and a colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company and naturalist.
Jan Commelin, also known as Jan Commelijn, Johannes Commelin or Johannes Commelinus, was a botanist, and was the son of historian Isaac Commelin; his brother Casparus was a bookseller and newspaper publisher. Jan became a professor of botany when many plants were imported from the Cape and Ceylon and a new system had to be developed. As alderman of the city, together with burgomaster Johan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen he led the arrangement of the new botanic garden Hortus Medicus, later becoming Hortus Botanicus. He cultivated exotic plants on his farm 'Zuyderhout' near Haarlem. Commelin amassed a fortune by selling herbs and drugs to apothecaries and hospitals in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities.
Narcissus poeticus, the poet's daffodil, poet's narcissus, nargis, pheasant's eye, findern flower or pinkster lily, was one of the first daffodils to be cultivated, and is frequently identified as the narcissus of ancient times. It is also often associated with the Greek legend of Narcissus. It is the type species of the genus Narcissus and is widely naturalised in North America.
George Clifford III was a wealthy Dutch banker and one of the directors of the Dutch East India Company. He is known for his keen interest in plants and gardens.
Nicolaes Witsen was a Dutch statesman who was mayor of Amsterdam thirteen times, between 1682 and 1706. In 1693, he became administrator of the Dutch East India Company (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 authority on shipbuilding. His books on the subject are important sources on Dutch shipbuilding in the 17th century. Furthermore, he was an expert on Russian affairs. He was the first to describe Siberia, the Far East and Central Asia in his study Noord en Oost Tartarye [North and East Tartary].
Alida Withoos was a Dutch botanical artist and painter. She was the daughter of the painter Matthias Withoos.
Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen II was the eldest son of burgomaster Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen I and the brother-in-law of the collector Jan J. Hinlopen and the sheriff Jacob Boreel. He was mayor of Amsterdam for 13 terms between 1673 and 1693. Unlike most mayors, he did not live at the Golden Bend, but on Lauriergracht in the Jordaan, where Govaert Flinck, Johannes Lingelbach, Jurriaen Ovens, who painted his portrait, the art-dealer Gerrit van Uylenburgh, and Melchior de Hondecoeter also lived.
François, Franciscus, or Frans Kiggelaer was a Dutch botanist, apothecary and curator of the garden of Simon van Beaumont in Leiden. In 1690, he published a plant catalogue of this garden under the title "Horti Beaumontiani: Exoticarum Plantarum Catalogus ...".
Jan Moninckx, was a Dutch botanical artist and painter, best known for the colour plates he and his relative, Maria Moninckx, created and which make up the nine-volume Moninckx Atlas. This was published in the period 1686-1709 and depicted 420 plants from the Hortus Medicus of Amsterdam.
Caspar Commelijn or Caspar Commelin, was a Dutch botanist.
Agnes, or Agneta Block was a Dutch art collector and horticulturalist. She is most remembered as the compiler of an album of flower and insect paintings.
Francesco Cupani was an Italian naturalist mainly interested in botany.
Lambert Bidloo, of Amsterdam, was by religion, a Zonist Mennonite, by profession, an apothecary and botanist and by passion, a man of letters and translator. After a solid education in classical letters and a period of apprenticeship, Lambert joined the apothecaries' and surgeon's guild overseeing standards and education at the Collegium Medicum. In 1688, he became the director of this institution, and, along with associates and collaborators, botanist Jan Commelin and anatomist Frederik Ruysch he had a hand in its herbalist Hortus Medicus flowering into the global Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam) of today. His various learned works in Latin and Dutch deal with plants, with Mennonite religious issues and with different historical themes, contemporary, biblical and literary. Among these Bidloo is best known for the curious Panpoeticon Batavum,, a figurative and visual poet's gallery of Golden Age Dutch literature. This he produced as a joint undertaking with the noted artist and art historian Arnold Houbraken who was then also launching The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters,.
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