350 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “‘ LITTLE ANIMALS” 
reproduced in colours. The best steel-engraving (copied from 
de Blois) is that by A. Smith,’ prefixed to Hoole’s Select 
Works (Vol. I, 1798): but another good one—probably copied 
from Smith’s, but with the head turned to the right (as in the 
original mezzotint)—was made by J. Chapman and published 
by G. Jones in 1813. All these reproductions show 
Leeuwenhoek’s head only, in an oval frame with more or 
less added decoration. 
Regarding Anker Smith’s engraving (in Hoole) the 
following points should be noted. Although it bears an 
extract from a Dutch letter printed in 1696, and is marked 
“ Painted by I. Verkole”’, it was almost certainly copied from 
the engraving by de Blois accompanying the Latin Arc. Nat. 
Det. The oval frame bears the words: “ANTONIUS A 
LEEUWENHOEK DELPHENSIS, R.8.8. AET. LXIII. 
MDCXCV.” Both age and year are entirely wrong, and 
consequently this circumscription has already led to mis- 
understanding. JI can only suppose that Smith (or Hoole) 
wrongly took the date of the Arc. Nat. Det. (1695) as that in 
which de Blois’s engraving was made; and that the age of 63 
was then inferred from this error. Anyway, there can be no 
doubt that Smith’s engraving was ultimately derived from an 
original made in 1686 (not 1695), which portrayed 
Leeuwenhoek at the age of about 54 (not 63). 
Verkolje’s portraits have been copied and recopied over 
and over again, and terribly travestied and perverted in the 
process. ‘The die of Leeuwenhoek’s own seal * was admirably 
incised from the mezzotint: the modern bronze effigy’ of 
himself, now suspended in Oude Delft, is also based—less 
successfully—on Verkolje’s originals. Moreover, there are 
contemporary tiles and pottery of Delft-ware bearing 
Leeuwenhoek’s supposed simulacrum “ after Verkolje” (a very 
long way after). I have seen two samples of these—a plate 
and a plaque—now in the Riyksmuseum; and Haaxman and 
Harting mention others. I have also seen a present-day 
descendant of Verkolje’s pictures—showing “the man who 
1 Anker Smith (1759-1819), a once celebrated engraver of small plates 
for book-illustration. He was elected.A.R.A. in 1797. 
2 Ct. p:. 360. 
3 Cf. p. 340 supra. 
