Summary

Oil painting on canvas, A Cocoa Tree and Roasting Hut by an unknown artist, circa 1672. In the left foreground is a cocoa (cacao) tree, on which cocoa pods hang and some below on the ground. In the background, cocoa pods are drying outside a red tiled roofed hut on trays on all its sides. An almost identical picture, painted in Jamaica, is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 406104).

Full description

This depiction of a cocoa plant shows the process used in growing and preparing cocoa, or cacao, in the Caribbean in the late 17th century. The painting is first documented at Dyrham Park in a sale of pictures from 1765. It was recorded unsold and presumably remained somewhat overlooked at Dyrham, only to resurface in the inventory of chattels purchased by the Ministry of Works in 1956. It was then, as presently, located in the closet adjoining the Greenhouse, an appropriate junction between house and orangery for a botanical scene, but from earlier inventory analysis this seems a recent placement. The picture was formerly attributed to Albert Eckhout and believed to have been painted in Brazil. This stems from the provenance of an almost identical version in the Royal Collection (RCIN 406104). That picture is known to have arrived during the reign of Charles II (1660–85) and has been associated with a set of views of Cleves (now Kleve, Germany) purportedly once hanging in the Prinsenhof of the former Governor-General of the Dutch colony of Brazil, Prince Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen (1604–79). It is now understood that the Royal Collection picture was painted in Jamaica and presented to the king in 1672, surely quite independently of the Cleves views, and for altogether different purposes. The Dyrham version is thought to have been painted in London thereafter. A letter written by the then Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Lynch (d. 1684), to Sir Robert Moray, fellow of the Royal Society (1608/9–73), now in the archives of the Royal Society, tells us that the Royal Collection picture was sent after 2 March 1672 and that it came to England aboard the Royal African Company (RAC) ship Dilligence, commanded by Captain Cullen. Governor Lynch also instructed Cullen to deliver a detailed report on Jamaica, dated 10 March 1672, to the Council for Trade and Plantations in London, a report that was received on 26 May and presented the following day. Councillors would learn that the island was producing an abundance of sugar, some indigo, but no cacao. Therefore it seems Cullen, having carried African people into slavery in Jamaica, sailed the Dilligence back to England with commodities, governmental papers, private letters, and ‘a Box marked L that has in it a Cocoa Tree painted to the Life’. The letter to Moray explained how cocoa was grown in the islands, using the Royal Collection picture as an illustrated guide: 'This Picture containes the whole Story of the Cocoa, it’s an old Tree, the Body (as they commonly are) is about 4 inches in Diameter, 5 foot in height, and about 12: from the ground to the Topp of the Tree: These Trees are exceeding different among themselves, for some shoot up in two or three bodies, others in one as this, Their leaves are many, dead, and discoloured, unless on very young Trees, They are not att all beautifull, nor so agreeable to the Eye as the fruite is to the pallate of them that love Chocolatte. The Number of Codds a Tree produces is uncertaine But wee reckon a bearing Tree yeilds from two to 8 Lb of Nutts a yeare, and each Codd conteines from 20 to 30 Nutts. The manner of curing them is to cutt them downe, when they are ripe and lay them to Swet 3 or 4 dayes in the Codds, which is done by laying them on Heapes, after this they cutt the Codds, and take out the Nutts and putt them into a trough covered with Plantane Leaves, where they Swett againe about 16 or 20 dayes, the Nutts that are in each Codd are knitt together by certaine ffibres, and have about them a white kinde of Pulpe, that’s agreeable to the Palat, but these turning and Sweating these little things are broke, and the pulpe is imbib’d and mingled with the Substance of the Nutt, after this they are putt to dry on the Barbacoes or Drawers 3 or 4 weekes in the Sun, and then they become of a reddish dark colour, as you see, and so are cured.' The description goes into incredible detail, even telling Moray that the original tree was from a plantation belonging to former Governor Sir Thomas Modyford (1620–79). It was thus not merely a representative or idealised picture, but one composed at a specific location. The apparent blue and yellow/gold colour scheme of the hut’s finial may represent Modyford’s heraldic colours (tinctures). His cacao plantations were at Sixteen Mile Walk in the former parish of St Thomas-in-the-Vale, now in St Catherine, about 15 miles north of Spanish Town. Described in 1697 as ‘Elizian plains, a most pleasant Vale’ and later by Hans Sloane as ‘some of the best and securest plantations of the Island’; its southern approach passed through a deep gorge in the Rio Cobre, attracting subsequent writers and artists for its picturesque qualities, while the vale was prized for its fertile red soil, frequent rainfall and conditions considered especially healthy for habitation. The one thing that Lynch completely misses from his account, just as the artist has omitted them from the painting, are the people, mostly enslaved Africans, but perhaps also Indigenous Americans, who did the work. Throughout his account, Lynch speaks of the trees being planted and of the pods being removed, but never mentions them. Instead, the tree and its products become detached from their cultivation, viewed as an object for the botanical consideration of the Royal Society in London. While the Lynch-Moray letter contains this full description of the painting, a second version of the letter, now in the British Library in a collection of papers assembled by William Blathwayt (?1649–1717) and his uncle Thomas Povey (1613/14–c.1705), takes up the story. It reproduces the same content as the first letter but also notes that the picture was sent first to Moray to look at, and was then to be forwarded on to Lynch’s mother-in-law, Lady Herbert, for safekeeping. However, Lynch asked that if the king should see it and like the picture, then it should be given to him, adding that 'I dare not present not thinking it a fitt offering to him, to whom I owe all I have or can doe’. Based on the fact that this painting remains in the Royal Collection to this day, Moray evidently did show it to Charles II, and the monarch must have expressed a desire to keep it. It is probable that the second, Dyrham copy of the painting was made shortly after the original’s arrival in London in May 1672 for Thomas Povey, a close associate of both Moray and Lynch, and a fellow active member of the Royal Society. The two versions, while close, have many small differences. The Royal Collection version was enlarged at top and bottom to integrate it with the set of views of Cleves when installed on the staircase at Frogmore House, Windsor, in the early 20th century. However, the original canvases are within a few centimetres of each other. Crossreferencing, it is likely the Royal Collection version is the one ‘painted to the Life’, given its specificity when contrasted with the more generalised approach in the Dyrham version.For example, the metal rings attached to the drying trays have a pronounced D-shape, whereas those in the Dyrham copy are a simpler uniform circular shape. Furthermore, the quantity, colour and form of the various cacao ‘Nutts’ differ, with those in the Royal Collection version better matching the accompanying description, to illustrate their ‘reddish dark colour’. Who painted the original picture is unknown, but Lynch did comment ‘the Painting is not so delicate, but the Resemblance admirable’ and ‘I am not sure this piece will bee so much Esteemed att Whitehall, as the Originall is amongst the Spanyards, and in these Indyes’. No details are provided about the artist in either letter, other than the apology for its quality. Assuming Thomas Povey commissioned the copy, he was closely associated with artists working at court and in Royal Society circles, such as Samuel van Hoogstraten, Robert Streeter and Hendrick Danckerts, so had access to artists and studios who could produce it. In April 1673 the painting’s description was published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, authored by ‘an intelligent person now residing in Jamaica’ and yet, despite references to the all-important picture, there was no accompanying illustration. It was previously generally thought that Blathwayt had not himself directly engaged in plantation owning, but instead profited from it indirectly in his roles as Secretary of the Lords of Trade and Plantations and Auditor-General of Plantation Revenues. But in fact, manuscript sources from a decade after the painting arrived in England show him very keen to profit from an investment in cacao plantations like the one depicted. In the summer of 1682, Lynch wrote from Jamaica of his own investment in cacao and teased Blathwayt that he, like other courtiers, would have no interest in such things: 'By Temple you had a very small Box of chocolatte, it was not good, & I remember Tee is your drink. I do not know but you would do wel to venture at makeing a Cocoa Walk, possibly 4 yeares salary might make you 500l or more per annum, I am engaging in partnership with Sir Th: Modyford, & in another place with C. Broughton so think to adventure 1000l, But you Courtyers have not faith, nor wil I say more because there’s accydents in this as in everything.' Blathwayt’s response to Lynch was anything but uninterested, asserting ‘I do approve extreamely of your Proposition of a Cocoa and though We Courtiers are of so little faith, we can easily trust ourselves in good hands’. He wrote with excitement about the prospect of getting a grant of 1,000 acres in Jamaica: ‘If such a quantity might be of any advantage to me (as I have been heretofore told it would) and would cause no clamor I would be glad to be made a freeholder in Jamaica either in my own name or in any of The Povey’s name.’ Blathwayt was particularly motivated by the prospect of being in partnership with Lynch, but Lynch already had partners. Instead, he asked the Governor to set him up with a reliable agent, good land, and to invest the Jamaican contribution to his salary as Auditor-General to cover the costs of labour and equipment. Lynch’s updates on their private plan to acquire land are nested within his official letters to Blathwayt. From 1682 to 1683 the two men discussed cacao planting alongside a new set of Jamaican laws sent to the king for approval, primarily one governing the importation of enslaved Africans to work just such plantations. As Lynch reminded Blathwayt, ‘To the Planters they ar as needful as Bread is to feed a Labourer, or Money to set up a Usurer.’ Lynch complained that the RAC was not supplying enough enslaved people, so undermining the economics of plantations and consequently the Jamaican colony. The proposed law was part of ongoing tensions between the competing priorities of planters and those of the RAC in London, and the empire at large. In the end, a blight on cacao, floods and trouble securing the land delayed the implementation of the plan long enough for both men to decide that it was no longer worth the risk to Blathwayt. Instead, he would receive the Jamaican salary payments that would otherwise have been invested, saying that ‘I think tis better for me than planting so farr off.’ In 1682 when planning plantation investments with Lynch, Blathwayt had been a freeholder neither in Jamaica nor in the English countryside. But in 1686 he married Mary Wynter (1650–91) and through that marriage acquired Dyrham Park and thus became a significant landowner. From 1693 Blathwayt bought dozens of paintings from his uncle Thomas Povey, presumably including the Cocoa Tree, and purposefully brought them down to Gloucestershire to decorate the house, then being rebuilt with significant ambition. He was at that time one of the most powerful men in government – Secretary of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, Auditor-General of Plantation Revenues, Secretary at War, Clerk of the Privy Council, and de facto Secretary of State to William III (1650–1702). Now he and the king both possessed copies of this painting, symbols not just of the cash crop that produced hot chocolate, but of their role in the emergent British Empire. This painting may not show the whole story, but it nonetheless represents the near lifetime investment Blathwayt made in the imperial project. For Blathwayt, colonies became ‘necessary and important because they enlarge His [Majesty’s] Empire & Revenue very considerably’. Archival evidence combined with the Dyrham picture provide a better understanding of the connections between Blathwayt, Dyrham, England, expanding colonial communities, their commodities, and the often-invisible enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples who produced them. Text adapted from an article by Phillip Emanuel and Rupert Goulding in the Arts | Buildings | Collections Bulletin, Autumn 2021, pp. 5-9.