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Lot Essay
The mirror cypher PAD is for Petrus and Anna Douw
The first Douw in New York was Volckert Jansen Douw (b.c. 1613-1681) who emigrated in 1637 from Leeuwarden. His brother was Gerard Douw (b. 1613), the famous Dutch genre painter. Volckert Douw first settled in Rensselaerwyck and quickly became a major landowner in the Albany area, purchasing land from the Indians. He married Dorothe van Breestede in 1650 and they had eleven children who married into other prominent New York Dutch families including the Gansevoorts, Van Cortlandts, and Quackenbushes.
Volckert Douw's grandson, Captain Petrus Douw, continued to purchase land in the Albany area. He held numerous political offices including a seat on the General Assembly of the Province of New York.
Petrus Douw and Anna van Rensselaer built Wolvenhoeck, a grand house, in 1724 on the east bank of the Hudson River, across from Albany. In 1715 Wolvenhoeck, or Wolves' Point, was part of the Manor of Rensselaer and was given by Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the Lord of the Manor, to his brother Hendrick van Rensselaer (1667-1740), Anna's father. Hendrick van Rensselaer himself lived on the family manor at Crailo, a seventeenth-century brick house which still stands today in Rensselaer, New York. A Douw descendant described Wolvenhoeck in the early nineteenth century as
built of wood and bricks, brought from Holland as ballast, and shingled with white fir shingles . . . . Over the front door was a free-stone slab with the initials P.D.A.V.R. cut in it, and the front wall was pierced for muskets in case of a sudden emergency (Morris Douw Ferris, The Douws of Albany, 1973, p. 9).
All of Petrus and Anna's nine children were born at Wolvenhoeck. Unfortunately, the great house was demolished between 1835 and 1840.
A silver cann by Jacob Ten Eyck, also engraved with the Douw coat-of-arms, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It bears the monogram ID, for Jonas Douw (d. 1736), father to Captain Petrus Douw.
For more information on the Douw family, see Morris Douw Ferris, The Douws of Albany, 1973.
CAPTION:
Wolvenhoeck, built by Petrus Douw and Anna van Rensselaer in 1724
Courtesy of the Frick Art Reference Library
CAPTION:
Catherine Louisa Douw Townsend (1817-1891), watercolor on ivory
Courtesy of Albany Institute of History and Art
CAPTION:
Catherine Douw Gansevoort Douw (1782-1848), watercolor on ivory
Courtesy of Albany Institute of History and Art
The first Douw in New York was Volckert Jansen Douw (b.c. 1613-1681) who emigrated in 1637 from Leeuwarden. His brother was Gerard Douw (b. 1613), the famous Dutch genre painter. Volckert Douw first settled in Rensselaerwyck and quickly became a major landowner in the Albany area, purchasing land from the Indians. He married Dorothe van Breestede in 1650 and they had eleven children who married into other prominent New York Dutch families including the Gansevoorts, Van Cortlandts, and Quackenbushes.
Volckert Douw's grandson, Captain Petrus Douw, continued to purchase land in the Albany area. He held numerous political offices including a seat on the General Assembly of the Province of New York.
Petrus Douw and Anna van Rensselaer built Wolvenhoeck, a grand house, in 1724 on the east bank of the Hudson River, across from Albany. In 1715 Wolvenhoeck, or Wolves' Point, was part of the Manor of Rensselaer and was given by Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the Lord of the Manor, to his brother Hendrick van Rensselaer (1667-1740), Anna's father. Hendrick van Rensselaer himself lived on the family manor at Crailo, a seventeenth-century brick house which still stands today in Rensselaer, New York. A Douw descendant described Wolvenhoeck in the early nineteenth century as
built of wood and bricks, brought from Holland as ballast, and shingled with white fir shingles . . . . Over the front door was a free-stone slab with the initials P.D.A.V.R. cut in it, and the front wall was pierced for muskets in case of a sudden emergency (Morris Douw Ferris, The Douws of Albany, 1973, p. 9).
All of Petrus and Anna's nine children were born at Wolvenhoeck. Unfortunately, the great house was demolished between 1835 and 1840.
A silver cann by Jacob Ten Eyck, also engraved with the Douw coat-of-arms, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It bears the monogram ID, for Jonas Douw (d. 1736), father to Captain Petrus Douw.
For more information on the Douw family, see Morris Douw Ferris, The Douws of Albany, 1973.
CAPTION:
Wolvenhoeck, built by Petrus Douw and Anna van Rensselaer in 1724
Courtesy of the Frick Art Reference Library
CAPTION:
Catherine Louisa Douw Townsend (1817-1891), watercolor on ivory
Courtesy of Albany Institute of History and Art
CAPTION:
Catherine Douw Gansevoort Douw (1782-1848), watercolor on ivory
Courtesy of Albany Institute of History and Art