Object Literature
FRANS GREENWOOD (Rotterdam 1680-1763 Dordrecht) Frans Greenwood was the son of Francis Greenwood, merchant and Anna Glover, both of Yorkshire extraction. Greenwood was trained in Rotterdam to be a merchant and worked as such for some time. In 1720 he became a Customs and Excise Officer moving from Rotterdam to Dordrecht in 1726. He received revenue from a plantation in Surinam, of which he was part-owner. Greenwood took an active interest in literature and was a well-known poet in his day. He was the first to stipple a whole picture on glass. Greenwood’s stippling technique greatly influenced other engravers in Dordrecht. His most important follower was Aert Schouman. Forty-three glasses signed by Greenwood are known, three of which are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (see P.C. Ritsema van Eck, Glass in the Rijksmuseum, vol. II, Zwolle, 1995, p.469 for a more extensive biography of Frans Greenwood) The subject is reminiscent of a fish-seller painted by Gerard Dou (1613-1675) (see W. Martin, 1902, Gerard Dou, No. 41). Greenwood referred to a goblet which he had engraved with een haringverkoopster (a herring saleswoman) with a poem inscription which perhaps was engraved on the foot, now lost; Een haring verkoopster Ô Zegenrijke visscherij Wat schaft ge ons jaarlijks lekkernij! Uw’ haring, die geliefde visch Wekt eet en drinklust aan den dish (Oh, greatly blessed fishery what delicacies you provide each year! Your herring that beloved fish, whet’s one’s appetite for food and drink) This goblet may be the haringwijfje (herring wife) owned in the middle of the 18th century by bachelor Paul Schepers (one of the directors of the Dutch East India Company), Rotterdam, who bequeathed it in his testaments to his second cousin together with two other Greenwood glasses. F.G.A.M. Smit, Frans Greenwood (1680-1763), Dutch poet & glass engraver, Peterborough, 1988, p. 146. A. Edelstein, Art at Auction, the year at Sotheby Parke Bernet 1973-1974, London, 1974, p. 439. F. Greenwood, vervolg van F. Greenwood gedichten, Dordrecht 1760 for the poem on the missing foot.
