Nationalist Notes

Earlier today I found these two bank notes from the old country snuggled in the back of a dusty book. These were in general circulation between 1978 and 1990, and so would have seen me through the end of high school, my two years national service, my three degrees and my initial move to the UK. Fascinating times.

The note is supposed to depict Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck, but some National Party bureaucrat screwed up and the portrait on the old bank notes is of Bartholomeus Vermuyden, as painted by Dirck Craey (1650) and currently hanging in the Rijksmuseum. The actual van Riebeeck was far less glamorous as this portrait of him in the Rijksmuseum reveals. Researcher Jonkheer F.G.L.O van Kretschmar has also determined that the popular portrait of van Riebeeck's wife, Maria, was more likely that of Catharina Kettingh, wife of Bartholomeus Vermuyden. The real Maria van Riebeeck (nee de la Queillerie) was as frumpish as her husband - this is the portrait of her in the Rijksmuseum. Worse still, by all accounts the statue in Adderley Street, Cape Town, is not a likeness of Maria either, but of the "wife of the chairman of the Dutch committee that helped to organise the 1952 Van Riebeeck festival in Cape Town." (Giliomee and Mbenga, 2007, "New History of South Africa"). Incredible - you couldn't believe a goddamn thing under the old apartheid regime.

Interesting read here.

Additional images:

• Jan van Riebeeck
• Maria de la Queillerie
• Bartholomeus Vermuyden
• Catharina Kettingh

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©