HMN 2025: How Lead isotope evaluation debunks legend of Dutch basin made totally from Spanish treasure fleet silver

A review by Dr. Joosje van Bennekom and her colleagues aimed to find out the provenance of the famed silver basin supposedly fabricated from Spanish treasure fleet silver captured by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1628. The work is published within the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

In 1628, Admiral and Commander Piet Heyn (1577–1629) was ordered to intercept the returning Spanish treasure fleet laden with silver, gold, pearls, spices, pigments, crucifixes, and so on.

At the time, the silver onboard was value 11.5 million guilders, which is akin to 56.4 billion euros as we speak.

Today, the silver basin is a part of a set, along with an ewer, each supposedly created from treasure fleet silver, housed within the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

Upon the ewer are varied hallmarks and inscriptions that present context to its creation, together with the hallmark “Fo ENRIQZ,” indicating that silversmith Francisco Enrique made the ewer. Additionally, a pictorial hallmark comprised a lowercase “o” and uppercase “M” between two pillars of Hercules. The latter hallmark signifies that the ewer dates to between 1606 and 1628.

According to the inscription on the ewer’s base in Dutch, “This ewer was derived from the treasure fleet conquered by the gentleman Lieutenant Admiral Pieter Pieters Heyn, on the Sixteenth of September 1628.” (Original: “Dese kanne is Gekomen uyt de Siluere Vloot Verouert bijden Heer Luijt Admirael Pieter Pieters Heyn, Den 16den Sept 1628”).

The basin, against this, was made in a totally completely different model. Its hallmark refers back to the metropolis of “The Hague,” whereas its inscription merely states “Administrators of the patented West Indian Company on the Chamber of the Maze 1684.” The Chamber of the Maze was the governing physique of the WIC.

Despite supposedly being a part of a set, the basin will not be talked about in historic information till 1808, through which it’s described as “a silver ewer and basin, the primary discovered within the cabin of the Spanish Admiral when overtaking the treasure fleet by Admiral Pieter Pitersz Hein, after which the basin was later finished honor.” The phrase “honor” means that the basin might have been a later addition, made to honor Heyn and the seize of the Spanish treasure fleet.

By 1878, it appeared in a preferred journal stating each the ewer and basin had been created from silver captured from the treasure fleet.

To decide the veracity of those statements and decide if the enigmatic basin was certainly fabricated from treasure fleet silver, Dr. van Bennekom and her workforce performed lead isotope ratio (LIR) evaluation on the basin, ewer, and reference silver from the Americas, the Dutch Republic, and varied European international locations.

Silver sometimes comprises lead impurities, which can be utilized to find out the provenance of the silver.

The two largest silver producers between the Sixteenth and 18th centuries had been the Potosí mine in Bolivia and a collection of mines in Mexico. While in Europe, the primary silver mining manufacturing facilities included the Bohemia/Jáchymov (Czech Republic), the Erzgebirge (Germany), the Schwaz in Tyrol (Austria), and the Hungarian Ore Mountains in Neusohl (Slovakia).

By the mid-Sixteenth century, Spanish-American (SA) silver started changing European sources.

Dutch objects, particularly, performed a big position in monitoring this transition as they usually combined varied silver sources. Remelting and reusage of silver was finished in all eras of Dutch (world) historical past, it’s nonetheless finished these days!” explains van Bennekom.

To decide if the silver used within the ewer and basin was pure SA, combined, or pure European silver, reference artifacts with a identified provenance had been used.

It was decided that whereas the ewer was certainly fabricated from Mexican silver, it was possible derived from the treasure fleet. The basin, regardless of legend, was fabricated from combined silver.

“In the tip, it appears very logical that some mixing needed to happen. Reworking SA silver within the Netherlands in some way ought to depart traces within the silver of the Dutch workshop,” says Dr. Bennekom.

The legend that Heyn’s basin was crafted from treasure fleet silver in all probability originated throughout the nineteenth century as a result of rising nation-states cultivated nationalism via frequent historic narratives and their related artifacts.

Thus, whereas the ewer authentically embodies the “triumphs” of the Dutch Republic, the parable of the silver basin is a product of its time, relatively than being rooted in historic reality.

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