Station: [14] Room 9 – Family portraits

The next small room was originally used by the lady of the house as a dressing room. The Koekkoek family has now gathered here. The two cityscapes show their place of origin, the port city of Middelburg in Zeeland, painted by the famous Dutch city painter Cornelis Springer.

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek specialised in landscape painting. He only painted portraits of close family members. The largest painting in this room shows his sister Anna, who lived in Amsterdam and was widowed at the age of thirty-five.

His father-in-law, J. A. Daiwaille was a popular portrait painter in Amsterdam. He painted Anna Koekkoek in small format in pastel, an almost identical copy of her portrait in oil.

The father-in-law had previously been Barend Cornelis' teacher at the art academy in Amsterdam. His self-portrait shows him in later years with a painting stick in his hand.

We also encounter his daughter Elise Therese – Koekkoeks later wife – here in the room in a pastel portrait. She was a talented draughtswoman and worked as a young artist in her father's lithographic workshop. It was here that she met her future husband. As a woman, however, she had no opportunity to turn her talent into a profession.

The couple had five daughters in Kleve, one of whom died at an early age. Marie Luise and Adele, the two youngest daughters, were also talented. Their grandfather Daiwaille painted a portrait of Adele as a child.

In the 19th century, it was popular for important contemporaries to have death masks or casts of their hands made. We can see an example of this in the corner display case: a plaster cast of the landscape painter's hand. Portraits of the famous artist appeared in various art magazines of the time, showing him as a painter at his easel or as a draughtswoman in nature.

The display cases contain works by the family's daughters. Adèle was a talented painter, while Marie drew, painted and made paper cut-outs. Like her mother, as a woman she did not have the opportunity to pursue art as a profession.