The Jewish outlook., 1905-10-20
A Newly Discovered Portrait
Of SpinOZa

searching for portrait of Spinoza, writes
DR.. Joseph Jacobs in the London Athe-
naum, would be in the United States, yet
that has happened which nobody could have
expected. We learn from Doctor Jacobs
letter that Mr.. Mayer Sulzberger of Phila-
delphia, president of the Court of Common
Pleas of that city, has come into possession
of such a portrait which, from it's pedigree
and other indications, has every sign of
authenticity. The interest of the discovery
is the greatest from the fact that only three
other portraits of Spinoza are known to
exist. Although this famous Dutch-Jewish
philosopher of the seventeenth century
founded no school, it is claimed that not only
metaphysicians, but poets such as Goethe,
Wordsworth, and Shelley have gone to him
for inspiration, and that his influence is to
be traced in the poetic pantheism of mod
ern interpretations of nature. Moreover, ac-
cording to a recent writer in the Hilbert
Journal, the awakening of an interest in
Spinoza was a contributing factor in the
modern idea of the immanence of God,
which has been called with some truth the
Characteristic religious conception of the
nineteenth century,
In regard to the newly discovered por-
trait, Doctor Jacobs, who is the revising
editor of the Jewish Encyclopaedia" writes
further:
ut bears upon the back an announce
ment in French that it became the property
of the Cardinal de Rohan-him of the dia-
mond necklace imbroglio-as gift of some
JEWISH tenants OF MS. But the painting IT,
self (oil on a paneD is signed w. V. 1872
Tor possibly 1879, and it is not difficult to
identify these initials with those of Waller
ant valiant, who made his reputation a
portrait painter by painting portrait Of
the Emperor Leopold in 1868. He settled at
Amsterdam in 1862, and died there 1877.
valiant painted the portrait of the Eector
Palatne Karl Ludwig, who, in 1878, invited
SpinoZa to become professor of philosophy
ut Heidelberg. The date affixed to the ini-
tials of the painter suggests that the por-
trait was made for the Elector Palatine in
connection with this offer.
There are at present, apart from this
newly discovered portrait, only three pic
tOrial representations of the face of SpinoZa:
0) The engraving found in some copies OF
the Opera Posthuma; (2) the miniature in
the possession of the Queen Dowager of
Holland, and reproduced in coors at the be-
ginning of Schaarschmidt's edition of the
'Korte Verhandeling'; (3) the painting at
Wolfenbuttel, reproduced from a photograph
at the beginning of Doctor Martineau's mon
ograph, and etched as frOntispiece in the
standard edition of Van Vloten and Land.
1t is impossible that (2) and (3) can repre-
sent the same person. The miniature is of
a marked Jewish type, whereas the Wolfen.
buttel portrait has Semitic features,
though Doctor Martineau thought he found
in it signs of the consumption of which
SpinoZa died. The new portrait, though it
has been somewhat badly restored, confirms
much more the authenticity of the minia-
ture than of the Wolfenbuttel portrait. Now
Colerus, the almost contemporary biogra-
pher of Spinoza, distinctly declares that his
would be borne out by the miniature and the
newly discovered DOrtrait Tins both from