272 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



them and Barlaeus confirms this; (2) the characters in which the 

 names are written are German rather than Hollandish; (3) in like- 

 ness and color they accord closely with Marcgrave's descriptions; 

 (4) the wood cuts in Marcgrave's text were for the most part made 

 from them ; ( 5 ) no other than Marcgrave could have made them. How- 

 ever he further conjectures that since they are smaller and he thinks 

 "of less skillful perfection" that they are copies of the oil paintings. 

 The two figures of the spotted sting ray previously given are the only 

 ones which the present writer has seen, but to him there is no doubt 

 that the water-color drawing was made from life if either is a copy it 

 is the oil painting, which, however, looks as if it had been made from a 

 dead and dried specimen. In the mind of the present writer there is no 

 doubt whatever that Marcgrave himself made all or almost all of these 

 water-color paintings. 



Not so easily determined is the authorship of the oil paintings, con- 

 cerning which Lichtenstein conjectures that they were made by certain 

 "nameless artists" who went with Count Maurice to Brazil. Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes and Driesen content themselves with saying that they 

 were painted by the order of the Count. Piso in the introduction to the 

 1658 folio says: 



... I have added figures drawn from life by the painter who wandered 

 with me through those wilds. 



Hence it seems pretty well established that Count Johann had with 

 him another painter besides Marcgrave. 



However, Driesen (1849) very effectually clears up this mystery. 

 He says that 



Herr Waagen, Director of the Galleries of Paintings of the Museum of 

 Berlin, has ascertained the painter to be Franz Post of Harlem, brother of the 

 celebrated architect Peter Post. Dutch authors expressly report that Johann 

 Moritz highly prized certain Brazilian landscapes painted on canvas by Franz 

 Post and brought back by him from Brazil. 



Now Peter Post was in Brazil with Count Moritz and was the 

 architect of the palace called Freiburg and of the surrounding gardens 

 on the island of Antonio Yaez (Nieuhoff). That his brother accom- 

 panied him seems very probable. 



Martius (1853-55) arrives at essentially the same conclusion, hav- 

 ing probably obtained his data from Driesen. He expressly states that 

 this artist came back from Brazil with the count. Further internal 

 corroboratory evidence is to be found in this statement from De Laet 

 in his "L'Histoire de Noveau Monde ou Description des Indies Occi- 

 dentals " (1640) : 



I have received from a certain young man of our country, rather expert in 

 the art of painting, three figures of other fishes which are taken everywhere in 

 that sea (Maranham on the northeast coast of Brazil). 



These figures are so nearly identical with the like in Marcgrave's 



