The ‘Dutchman’s Log’ or the
Seaman’s Tobacco Box of Pieter Holm
Collectors of tobacco boxes and nautical antiques may be
familiar with 18th- and early 19th-century Dutch seaman’s tobacco boxes
associated with Pieter Holm (1685/86-1776), a retired Swedish seaman who in the
1720s settled in Amsterdam and from about 1737 onward operated a nautical school
called Regt door Zee.
Although these tobacco boxes were never signed, they appear to
made in Iserlohn (Germany) from where they were shipped to Amsterdam and sold at
Pieter Holm’s nautical school. Whether the calendrical and nautical information
was already engraved on the boxes in Iserlohn or were added later in Amsterdam
is not known. The manufacture and sale of these boxes continued long after the
death of Pieter Holm in 1776 and the latest known copies date from 1817. A
typical example of a Pieter Holm tobacco box, dated 1750, is shown below.
These tobacco boxes, usually made of copper and brass and
measuring 12 to 18 cm in length, feature a perpetual calendar on the top of the
lid and a ship’s speed table on the bottom which Holm in a 1748 publication
claims to have devised in 1729. The top of the lid is further adorned with
simple vignettes portraying Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII, who
respectively in 45 BC and AD 1582 introduced the Julian calendar and the
Gregorian calendar.
The bottom usually carries a simple vignette of a person with
a globe and a pair of dividers with the year 1497 who is tentatively identified
as Amerigo Vespucci. Usually, the bottom also carries one of the following short
Dutch texts:
Den eeuwigh duerende almanack (“The ever-lasting almanac”)
Verlaet den Weerelt (“Abandon the world”)
Geen konst maar rijkdom kan men verliesen, Daarom is konst voor rijkdom
te kiezen (“Not experience but riches can be lost, therefore let
experience prevail above riches”)
Die deese doos draagt in den sak, Hoeft nooyt geen ander almanak
(“He who carries this box in his pocket, will never need another almanac”)
Click here
for an explanation how to use the perpetual calendar table and the ship’s speed
table.
Inventory of known Pieter Holm tobacco boxes
The following table lists all the known tobacco boxes of this
type that I am aware of:
1729 Zeeuws Genootschap der Wetenschappen (Middelburg, NL)
1729 Maritiem Museum (Rotterdam, NL) – 2 boxes
1729 Douwe Egberts Museum (Utrecht, NL)
1729 Private collection (Bedum, NL)
1729 Stadtsmuseum (Hamburg, D)
1729 St. Annen-Museum (Lübeck, D)
1729 Dithmarscher Landesmuseum (Meldorf, D)
1729 Private collection (Cologne, D)
1729 Dansk Folkemuseum (Copenhagen, DK)
1729 Danish Maritime Museum (Helsingfors, DK)
1729 Norsk Folkemuseum (Bygdö, N)
1729 National Museum (Dublin, IRL)
1729 Mystic Seaport (Mystic, USA)
1729 Peabody Museum (Salem, USA)
1729 Private collection (Cleveland, USA)
1729 Private collection (Horseheads, USA)
1729 Private collection (Meedham, USA)
1729 Trade (Tesseract, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA) – 2 boxes
1729 Trade (Eve Stone Antiques, Woodbridge, USA)
1746 Norsk Folkemuseum (Bygdö, N)
1750 Private collection (???,
B)
1753 Trade (Sotheby’s, London, UK)
1753 Private collection (Colchester, USA)
1754 Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Amsterdam, NL) – 2 boxes
1754 Norsk Folkemuseum (Bygdö, N)
1754 ??? Museum
(Reykjavik, IS)
1755 Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Amsterdam, NL)
1755 Maritiem Museum (Rotterdam, NL)
1755 Kasteel Duivenvoorde (Voorschoten, NL)
1755 Private collection (???,
NL)
1755 Dansk Folkemuseum (Copenhagen, DK)
1755 Trade (Tesseract, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA)
1756 Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Amsterdam, NL)
1757 Dithmarscher Landesmuseum (Meldorf, D) –
web link
1757 Private collection (Cambridge, UK)
1757 Trade (Sotheby’s, London, UK)
1759 Trade (Harriet Wynter, Chelsea, UK)
1759 Trade (Tesseract, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA)
1760 Trade (Harriet Wynter, Chelsea, UK)
1760 Private collection (???)
1761 Private collection (???,
NL)
1761 Dansk Folkemuseum (Copenhagen, DK)
1761 Trade (Tesseract, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA) – 2 boxes
1762 Bremer Landesmuseum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte (Bremen, D)
1762 Visserijmuseum (Vlaardingen, NL)
1762 Private collection (???,
USA)
1762 Trade (Christie’s, London, UK) – 2 boxes
1762 Trade (Sotheby’s, London, UK)
1763 Niemeyer Tabaksmuseum (Groningen, NL)
1763 Private collection (Illinois, USA)
1764 Niemeyer Tabaksmuseum (Groningen, NL)
1764 ??? Museum
(Reykjavik, IS)
1764 Trade (Ingrid Steinbrich-Fricke, Polling, D)
1765 Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Amsterdam, NL)
1766 Trade (Sotheby’s, London, UK)
1768 Groninger Museum (Groningen, NL)
1769 Trade (Tesseract, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA)
1773 Trade (Tesseract, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA)
1774 Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Amsterdam, NL)
1776 Trade (Fine Arts Auctioneers, Nottingham, UK)
1776 ???
1777 Royal Cornwall Museum (Truro, UK)
1779 Trade (Harriet Wynter, Chelsea, UK)
1782 Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Amsterdam, NL)
1782 Dansk Folkemuseum (Copenhagen, DK)
1782 Norsk Folkemuseum (Bygdö, N) – 2 boxes
1782 ??? Museum
(Reykjavik, IS)
1788 Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum (Bremerhafen, D)
1789 Trade (Ingrid Steinbrich-Fricke, Polling, D)
1789 ???
1791 National Maritime Museum (Greenwich, UK)
1792 Fries Museum (Leeuwarden, NL)
1792 Private collection (Elsene, B)
1792 National Museums of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)
1794 Private collection (Arnhem, NL)
1796 Norsk Folkemuseum (Bygdö, N)
1797 Private collection (???,
B)
1797 Trade (Sotheby’s, London, UK)
1797 Trade (Harriet Wynter, Chelsea, UK)
1798 Tabaks Museum (Wervik, B)
1801 Niemeyer Tabaksmuseum (Groningen, NL)
1806 Science Museum (London, UK)
1807 Provinciaal Drents Museum (Assen, NL)
1807 Maritiem Museum (Rotterdam, NL)
1809 Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Amsterdam, NL)
1817 Groninger Museum (Groningen, NL)
1817 Fries Museum (Leeuwarden, NL)
1817 Kulturhistoriska Museet (Lund, S)
Undated(?)
tobacco boxes
Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Amsterdam, NL)
Private collection (Middelburg, NL)
Private collection (???, B)
Stadtsmuseum (Hamburg, D)
Dansk Folkemuseum (Copenhagen, DK)
Marstal Søfartsmuseum (Marstal, DK)
Norsk Folkemuseum (Bygdö, N)
Whipple Museum (Cambridge, UK)
Trade (Christie’s, London, UK)
Trade (Olivier Coutau-Bégarie, Paris, F)
Mystic Seaport (Mystic, USA)
Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art (New York, USA) – 2 boxes
New Bedford Whaling Museum (New Bedford, USA)
I am preparing a paper on this group of tobacco boxes and I
would be very grateful for help in filling in the above question marks or to
learn of other boxes of this type preserved in private or institutional
collections that I am unaware of.
Undated(?)
tobacco boxes