Sientje Mesdag-van Houten

Sientje Mesdag-van Houten in her studio, 1903 (Photo: Sigmund Löw)

Sientje Mesdag-van Houten (born Sientje van Houten; * December 23, 1834 in Groningen , † March 20, 1909 in The Hague ) was a Dutch landscape and still life painter and art collector . She is considered the important representative of the Impressionist Hague School .

Life

Sientje van Houten was born in 1834 as the eldest daughter of eight children into a respected Groningen family. Her mother was Barbara Elisabeth Meihuizen, the father Derk van Houten, who ran an international timber trading company and was a member of the city council of Groningen, other secular bodies and the church council of the Baptist Anabaptist community . Two of her siblings died at a young age and the mother had health problems, so that Sientje van Houten was given a lot of household chores early on. In addition to his political and social interests, the father had also built up a small art collection, so that there were both political and artistic impulses in her childhood. Her brother Simon van Houten later became a well-known minister who u. a. initiated the first Dutch law against certain forms of child labor.

It is not known what school education Sissy received. At the age of 22, Sientje van Houten married the stockbroker Hendrik Willem Mesdag , also a member of the Anabaptist community, in 1856 , and their son was born in 1863. After father van Houten died in 1864, Hendrik Willem Mesdag and then Sientje van Houten decided to turn to painting (which was made possible by their inheritance). First they worked in the painter's village of Oosterbeek , and from 1866 they moved to Brussels, where Mesdag became a student of Willem Roelofs - and their house became a meeting place for Dutch and Belgian artists. Sissy acquired her drawing and painting skills autodidactically, but was advised by Roelofs and Laurens Alma Tadema , who was a cousin of Mesdag. After a visit to Norderney, Mesdag moved to the sea, he became a marine painter in The Hague in 1869, where the two of them worked in a studio room in a hotel by the sea and Sientje van Houten took drawing lessons.

Her son Klaas died of diphtheria in 1871 when he was eight years old .

After this event, van Houten concentrated fully on art, basically her path as an artist only started now. She painted landscapes (starting with the dunes of Scheveningen), but also still lifes and portraits. She received valuable tips from a painter friend and other artist. A year later, from 1872, Sientje van Houten sent exhibitions - the national exhibitions Levende Meesters, group exhibitions of the Hollandsche Teekenmaatschappij , which was based in The Hague. She also exhibited together with Mesdag, for example in the Pulchri Studio .

It is unclear what part she played in Panorama Mesdag , her husband's monumental painting. That she worked on it (like Mesdag's student Betzy Akersloot-Berg ) is well established, but there are only a few documents from the time of its creation. However, she is shown in the panorama under a white parasol on the beach of Scheveningen.

Hendrik Willem and Sientje Mesdag

In the art life of The Hague, Sientje Mesdag-van Houten was involved in various societies (she was one of the few female members of the Pulchri Studio), was president of a women's association and promoted young, destitute artists - from 1875 she regularly taught female artists in her studio. Together with Mesdag, she had also already started in Brussels to build up a collection of almost 300 paintings, watercolors, drawings and etchings by contemporary artists. In order to create space for the collection, they built a special museum that they opened to interested parties and jointly donated to the Dutch state in 1903 - the museum in The Hague has been called the Mesdag Collection since 2011 .

Sientje van Houten painted until her death. She died on March 20, 1909 and was buried on March 23 in the Oud Eik en Duinen cemetery in The Hague.

Work and reception

Sissy van Houten's landscapes and still lifes had strong brushstrokes; For her landscapes she initially used a rich, dark color scale that made her landscapes appear subdued, but this did not change until later. At her first exhibitions, her still lifes in particular received great critical acclaim; But her landscape paintings also received recognition - two paintings were awarded a bronze medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1889 . However, there was also negative criticism of the unbalanced composition, its richness of detail and the oversize of its canvases.

Tulips in a green albarello
Tulips in a Vase (1921)
Portrait of Betzy Akersloot-Berg

Sientje Mesdag-van Houten was known and recognized during her lifetime, for example honorary exhibitions were held on her seventieth birthday and she was awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau (officer).

Her individual reception changed very quickly after her death - she was reduced to her status as "wife of" Hendrik Willem Mesdag (which she definitely did not see herself - as a quote from 1904 shows). It was not until the end of the 20th century that research into them began again and their work was exhibited regularly.

“Mesdag - van Houten, an artist couple” - one of the rooms in the Panorama Mesdag Museum

Works in public collections

Web links

Commons : Sina Mesdag-van Houten - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Sientje Mesdag-van Houten. In: rkd.nl. RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, accessed on March 1, 2020 (Dutch).

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker: Mesdag, Sina (Sientje) . In: General encyclopedia of visual artists from antiquity to the present over 250,000 biographies on one CD . Ma-Me. Seemann, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-86502-177-9 , pp. 438 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Sientje Mesdag-van Houten: vrouw van de Haagse School - 9 June to 28 September 2008. (No longer available online.) In: panorama-mesdag.com. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014 ; accessed on March 1, 2020 (Dutch).
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Hanna Klarenbeek: Houten, Sientje van . In: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland . January 13, 2014 ( online via resources.huygens.knaw.nl ).
↑ ^a ^b The Mesdags. In: demesdagcollectie.nl. Retrieved March 1, 2020 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Search overview pictures by Sientje Mesdag-van Houten. In: rkd.nl. RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, accessed on March 1, 2020 (Dutch).

personal data
SURNAME	Mesdag-van Houten, Sissy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sina van Houten; Sientje van Houten; Sissy Mesdag
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch painter and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH	December 23, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH	Groningen
DATE OF DEATH	March 20, 1909
Place of death	The hague

[:1-1] Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker: Mesdag, Sina (Sientje) . In: General encyclopedia of visual artists from antiquity to the present over 250,000 biographies on one CD . Ma-Me. Seemann, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-86502-177-9 , pp. 438 .

[:3-2] Sientje Mesdag-van Houten: vrouw van de Haagse School - 9 June to 28 September 2008. (No longer available online.) In: panorama-mesdag.com. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014 ; accessed on March 1, 2020 (Dutch).

[:0-3] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Hanna Klarenbeek: Houten, Sientje van . In: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland . January 13, 2014 ( online via resources.huygens.knaw.nl ).

[:2-4] The Mesdags. In: demesdagcollectie.nl. Retrieved March 1, 2020 .

[:4-5] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Search overview pictures by Sientje Mesdag-van Houten. In: rkd.nl. RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, accessed on March 1, 2020 (Dutch).