Station: [8] Room 5 – Family Portraits

F:

Here in the former dining room, there’s a gathering of the Koekkoek family. The woman in the portrait front left is Koekkoek’s mother – in an early likeness by her son. A display case by the long wall on the right is devoted to his brothers.

In the back left corner of the room, we find Jean Augustin Daiwaille, Koekkoek’s father-in-law, and his daughter Elise Thérèse – who later became Koekkoeks wife. The two self-portraits by Daiwaille show him as a young hothead and as a sober older man. Koekkoek had studied under Daiwaille, and they’d jointly published several portfolios of lithographs.

Daiwaille’s daughter Elise Thérèse, shown here between the two portraits of her father, was also a skilled lithograph print maker and published several still lifes. However, the opportunities open to her as a woman fell far short of those available to her father or her later husband.

M:

Elise Thérèse, who was born in Amsterdam, married Koekkoek in 1833, her sewing box is on display in this room. The Koekkoeks had five daughters, one of whom died young. Marie Louise and Adèle, the two youngest, also became painters. Their grandfather Daiwaille painted a portrait of the infant Adèle – perhaps her large eyes and attentive gaze point toward her later talent.

The wooden cupboard with the wide drawers contains several silhouettes by Marie Louise.

F:

But if you’ve been wondering who that beautiful young woman in the black dress is, the one sitting in the park in a severe pose – well, we don’t know. Some relation perhaps? Certainly both B.C. Koekkoek and Jean Augustin Daiwaille painted portraits of her in 1846. Today, the “Portrait of a Young Woman” is one of our museum’s highlights, known as the “Mona Lisa of Cleves”.

Now, as you take the stairs up to the next floor, be sure to take a look at the garden on your way there. The large-scale painting up on the landing is our next stop.