Gerrit Paape

Gerrit Paape (Delft, 4 February 1752 – The Hague, 7 December 1803) was a Dutch plateelschilder (painter of earthenware and stoneware), poet, journalist, novelist, judge, columnist and (at the end of his career) ministerial civil servant.

Gerrit Paape was born to a poor couple with many children. Because he wanted to draw well, his father had him placed in a local earthenware factory in 1765, where he learned the trade of the plateelschilder. In 1779, he was dismissed. He had in the meantime joined a Delft circle of poets, amateur artists and notables. In 1781, he got a job as a clerk at the Kamer van Charitate (“Chamber of Charity”), the local institution of poor relief. Gradually Paape became a person of authority in Delft, whose opinions were heeded. In 1782, he became one of the Patriots.

In 1785, he became a journalist of the local paper the Hollandsche Historische Courant, since 1775 in the hands of Wybo Fijnje. The paper was regarded as one of the most radical in the country. Fijnje frequently had to defend his articles, especially those written by his friend and co-editor. Paape wrote pamphlets and poems and became a theoretician of the Patriots and a historian of the local societies. On 21 August 1787 a revolution took place in the vroedschap (the local government) in Delft, and various regents were deposed. In his account, Gerrit Paape laid emphasis on the opposition being shamed and silenced by the order and peace which characterised these developments.

At the end of September 1787 Paape fled to Amsterdam and two weeks later, wearing a wig and hat, via Antwerp and Brussels, ended up at Dunkirk. On 3 April 1789 he and Wybo Fynje were exiled for life from the four regions (Holland, Zeeland, Friesland and Utrecht) for lèse majesté. Herman Willem Daendels appointed Paape his secretary in Saint-Omer, and under the French general Pichegru, both men arrived at 's-Hertogenbosch on 21 September 1794 . The siege of the city was to last three weeks. Daendels' plans to take matters in his own hands in the Bommelerwaard were at his instigation reported by Paape in a newspaper article, which, however, upset the French.

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