Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh

Joseph van Lerius : Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh (1857)

Henriëtte Isabelle Joanna Mayer van den Bergh (born July 9, 1838 in Antwerp , † March 27, 1920 ibid) was a Belgian art collector , patron and museum curator . She founded the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp in 1904 , and was its curator throughout her life.

life and work

Henriëtte van den Bergh was born den Bergh as daughter of Henriette Catherine Elsen and the wealthy Antwerp city council and Senator Jean Felix van, the long-established with his brother Maximilian Genever - Distillery & Brasserie La Cloche led. She spent her childhood temporarily at Kasteel Maxburg in Meer .

In 1857, Henriëtte van den Bergh married the wealthy Cologne businessman Emil Mayer (1824–1879), who had moved to Antwerp to open a branch of Ensingh (later Mayer ), which sold pharmaceutical products and spices. The couple had two sons, Fritz (1858–1901) and Oscar (1859–1913). In May 1861 they bought the stately Hof van Arenberg estate in Antwerp , which they extensively renovated and redesigned. During her marriage, Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh began collecting art.

After the death of her husband in 1879, Mayer van den Bergh withdrew from public life and began to devote himself exclusively to art. While the younger son Oscar continued his father's business, her son Fritz moved back in with his mother. First he completed his own numismatic collection. He then began cataloging the family collection with his mother. In 1892 they sold a large part of their collection, presumably to create financial leeway for purchases for a future museum. Fritz Mayer van den Bergh invested a large part of his father's inheritance in paintings and antique art objects and became a recognized expert and collector of the paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Ä. . He acquired several paintings by the Flemish painter. In 1888 Fritz Mayer van den Bergh was ennobled for his services with the title of knight . In 1898 he bought 451 medieval works of art from the recently deceased collector Carlo Micheli.

Fritz Mayer van den Bergh died at the age of 43 as a result of a riding accident. His mother subsequently looked after his legacy and fulfilled his wish to open the art collection to the public.

In 1901 Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh commissioned the architect Joseph Hertogs to build a neo-Gothic museum building. In memory of her son, a medallion made by Louis Dupuis showing Fritz Mayer van den Bergh was placed in the entrance to the building. A year later she hired Hertogs to renovate her house. The museum was opened in 1904. Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh surrounded herself with art historians who sifted through the son's estate and prepared it for the museum. As a curator for life, she donated the museum building and the valuable art collection to a council of regents made up of friends and art historians as early as 1906.

Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh also worked as a builder of representative townhouses and villas in Antwerp, which were built by Joseph Hertogs between 1905 and 1910. She also had the Au Printemps trading house built on the corner of Leopoldstraat and Arenbergstraat.

In addition to her work in the museum, Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh founded and financed various charitable foundations : The Sint-Henricus-Foundation she set up took over the free care of needy patients in the Sint-Camillus Hospital. In Mortsel she founded the Sint-Fredericus-Stiftung and had Joseph Hertogs build a retirement home, which was later converted into a nursing home. In addition, it financed the construction of 43 single-family homes for needy families in Mortsel.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} A life for art. August 24, 2018, accessed March 8, 2020 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} mother Henriette van den Bergh. August 24, 2018, accessed March 8, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Fascination with Bruegel. August 24, 2018, accessed March 8, 2020 . 
4. ^ Museum Mayer van den Bergh. Retrieved March 8, 2020 (Dutch). 

Web links

Commons : Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files