I'm hoping someone can help me find more details about Poortermans’ lithographs and/or his life in the Cape Colony. I am also looking for help studying specific dossiers at the NASA KAB archives and the National Library of South Africa in Cape Town.

Poortermans was a Dutch lithographer who worked in the Cape Colony from 1833 until his death in 1870. From him there are about 100 litho’s in collections at various musea, libraries and archives. In about 20-30 publications Poortermans is mentioned (I have seen most of these). But these mostly only include a few lines or a short description. There are about four or five longer articles giving an overview of his litho’s in various collections. The most interesting publications are by Immelman in 1934 (probably the first publication on Poortermans) and Pictorial Africana by Gordon-Brown (1975). The exception being his nine litho’s of farms in the Piketberg area. These got attention from the vernacular community (Walton, Andre Pretorius and Malan; with even a thesis in 2015 by Thomas).

The first time I came across Poortermans was in 2013 during family research regarding an ancester who emigrated to South Africa as a teacher from the Netherlands in 1852. About this emigration and his first decades in Piketberg and Calvinia I published an article (click here to view). This study already resulted in an af.wiki page about Poortermans by Morné van Rooyen: https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Poortermans. Two of his most featured litho’s are of the old Piketberg church square and the former Cape Town Police Station (source af.wiki page). However, Poortmans made many more litho’s.  After his death probably only about 15 of his litho’s have been featured in publications (apart from the overviews of collections at musea).

Pm-Piketberg 1857 via Hin Oey.jpg

Old Piketberg Church Square

An interesting detail is that he had a dispute with another Dutchman Swaving who was an interpretor at the New High Court from 1827 to 1835 (In South Africa Gordon-Brown is the only one who has mentioned this dispute). Regarding Swaving there are references that he was one of the first persons publishing on Afrikaans as a language. I also found a reference that Poortermans did the lithography of a West Point military publication on pyrotechnics in 1832 (just before he came to South Africa). In the Netherlands I traced a number of details, including his family tree, his marriage certificate in 1817 and his 1825 presence (and dispute with Swaving) in my home town Delft.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Regards

Hin Oey, Netherlands, Hin.oey@gmail.com