Page - 2 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Introduction2 of paper on the desk and in his left hand, and a quill in an inkpot identify him as a man of letters; his two fingers gently touching the visible parts of a quad- rant also point to expertise in using instruments of astronomical observation. In the picture hanging on the wall behind him, a shining celestial body in the dark sky is shedding bright light on a wooden building; the stark silhouettes create a sense of cold freshness—a contrast with the coziness of the interior, intimated by the grandfather clock in the background on the right, and the graceful fall of the drapery on the desk. The central figure may be past the prime of his life, but an upright back and muscular legs reveal him to be in a good physical condition: while a scholar, he is agile, not averse to exertion. His look, too, is lively, confident, and penetrating, yet benign. His cheeks seem slightly frostbitten, as if he had just rushed across the chilly space that sepa- rates the small house from his present seat. He has still not shed the outfit that protects him from a hostile climate and helps him get around: pointed foot- wear, to facilitate easy movement in thick snow, warm socks and scarf, a full- length fur coat, and an all-round fur cap that can be fastened under the chin. As the inscription tells the viewer, the sitter is the reverend father Maximilian Hell of the Society of Jesus, royal and im- perial astronomer, in his Lappish garment, having felicitously carried out the observation of the transit of Venus before the Sun’s disc on June 3, 1769 at Vardøhus in Lapland, at the behest of Christian vii of Denmark and Norway. The box-like structure attached to the wooden house in the picture is actually Maximilian Hell’s (1720–92) and his associates’ makeshift “observatory,” its im- age being reproduced from Hell’s own sketches. This mezzotint was executed, on the basis of a drawing by Wenzel Pohl, in 1771 by the Augsburg artist Johann Elias Haid (1739–1809)1—a keen and accomplished portraitist of contempo- rary celebrities from Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–95) through Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) and Voltaire (1694–1778) to German scholars like Johann Jakob Moser (1701–85), Johann Stephan Pütter (1725–1807), and Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68)—at what is generally viewed as the climax of Hell’s career: right after his return from the Arctic region, having successfully partici- pated, at the helm of an expedition sponsored by the king of Denmark– Norway, in one of the emblematic collaborative ventures of eighteenth-century field 1 The print, at a price of one florin and twenty-five kreuzers, was recommended as “a nice pres- ent to the enthusiasts of Haid’s works, and to scholars who appreciate the services of Mr. Hell” in the Kayserlich königlich allergnädigst privilegirte Realzeitung (hereafter: Realzeitung), no. 34 (August 17, 1771): 539–40.