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Jan Herman van Roijen 1932

Seated half-length, turned slightly to the right, full-face to the viewer, in Court dress, wearing the white ribbon with red border of the Japanese Grand Cross of the Order of the Rising Sun

Oil on board, 91.5 x 71.1 cm (36 x 28 in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László W. 1932. I.^[1] 

Sitters’ Book II, f. 71: J. H. van Roijen. Jan: 2 1932. –

Private Collection 

In December 1931 de László made his fourth trip to the United States to paint Herbert Hoover [5787], the fourth President of the United States to be portrayed by the artist. He stayed several weeks to carry out numerous commissions in New York and Washington, including the portrait of Count László Széchenyi [4236] and his daughter Sylvia [4244]. He ended his visit in Miami where he painted a number of portraits of the Firestone family.

It was during his stay in Washington in January 1932 that de László painted Jan Herman van Roijen, then Dutch Minister to the United States. The painting strongly evokes the portrait of another ambassador, Count Albert Mensdorff [4694], painted in 1909, not only in the pose of the two men, both in diplomatic uniform against a dark background, but also in the stern expression and penetrating gaze.

Jan Herman van Roijen was born on 28 March 1871 in Zwolle, in the eastern part of The Netherlands, the son of Jan Hermannus van Roijen (1827-1883) and Anna Aleida, née van Engelen (1834-1911). He studied law at the University of Groningen and received his Doctorate Degree in International Public Law. In September 1899 he joined the Netherlands’ Diplomatic Service having just passed the Foreign Service examinations and three years later, in September 1901, he was appointed first secretary to the legation in Washington.

He met Albertina Taylor Winthrop (1871-1934), daughter of Robert Winthrop (1833-1892) and Kate Wilson Taylor (1839-1925) in Lenox, Massachusetts in the summer of 1903 and they married in New York on 17 May 1904. The New York Times of 18 May described the ceremony in detail and notes that “All of the older New York families were represented at the reception, and a great many of the older set who seldom attend such functions were present.”^[2] But still “the press covering the wedding unearthed little about the young Dutch groom, Mr. Jan Herman van Roijen. ‘About’ thirty-three, he was known to be the chargé d’affaires of the Dutch legation [actually the first secretary] and a ‘favourite’ in diplomatic and ‘residential’ circles in Washington. His best man was the new minister of The Netherlands, Jonkheer de Marees van Swi[n]deren.”^[3]

In 1898 de László had already painted a portrait of the bride’s third cousin Mrs Joseph Grafton Minot, née Honora Elizabeth Temple Winthrop and her son Grafton [6333]. That portrait was executed during de László’s first visit to England and was the artist’s introduction to the United States. In 1925, during his visit to Boston, he painted Mrs Minot’s niece, Honora Winthrop Mason [6279].

Shortly after their marriage Jan Herman van Roijen was appointed to the legation in Constantinople (Istanbul), at the time capital of the Ottoman Empire, where in 1905 their eldest son Jan Herman was born. In the same year he was transferred to London where he was promoted from 1st Secretary to the rank of Counsellor. In 1906 his second son, Robert Dudley was born, who would eventually attain senior rank in the CIA.

In 1908 Herman van Roijen was appointed Dutch Minister to Japan; in 1914 he was transferred to Madrid and in 1919 to Rome. In 1927 he became Dutch Minister in Washington. He was remembered for his liberal views, and was the first of four generations of diplomats in his family. ^[4]

He died unexpectedly on 31 August 1933 while on leave in The Hague.

LITERATURE:

•“Weddings of a Day: Van Roijen–Winthrop,” The New York Times, 18 May 1904, New York Times Article Archive

•Kean, Robert Winthrop, Fourscore Years: My First Twenty-Four, Privately Printed, 1974, ill. between pp. 52-53

•Wexler, Dorothy B., Reared in a Greenhouse, The Stories – and Story – of Dorothy Winthrop Bradford, Garland Publishing, London & New York 1998

AG 2011