10133

Taco and Henriette van den Honert 1905

Seated full-length together on an upholstered day bed; the boy, Taco, on the left wearing a sailor suit and holding a toy horse, his sister Henriette in a white dress and black stockings, holding a large open book on her lap

Oil on canvas, 147 x 116 cm (57 ⅞ x 45 ⅝ in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E.

Sitters’ Book I, f. 71: op Moundag 6 November 1905 hadden ung het genaegen der Herr Laszlo op de Ehze he outrangen Van den Honert [On Monday 6  November 1905 we had the pleasure to receive Mr Laszlo at de Ehze]

Private Collection

In 1903 de László painted a portrait of Cateau van den Honert [110990], the wife of Hendrik van den Honert,^[1] who from 1898 until his death in 1916 was director of the Deli-Maatschappij. This company, which traded with the island of Deli, Sumatra, was founded by the tobacco planters J. Nienhuys and P.W. Janssen in association with the Dutch Trading Company (Nederlandse Handelsmaatschappij). The pepper and tobacco grown on Deli were in great demand in Europe and the families involved in this trade in ‘the Deli’ were amongst the wealthiest in the Netherlands. Many of these became patrons of de László.

While painting Cateau, de László became acquainted with Derk Jacob van den Honert,^[2] Hendrik’s brother and father of Taco and Henriette. Derk Jacob was married to a daughter of P.W. Janssen, Else (born 1875), sister-in-law of Ella de Ridder [110912], whom de László had also painted in 1903. It was Ella’s father August de Ridder, an important art collector and neighbour of Adèle van Loon’s sister Marie von Grunelius^[3] at Kronberg, near Frankfurt, who had put the van den Honert family into contact with the artist. De László had already painted August de Ridder’s wife and elder daughter, probably in 1898.^[4]

The artist’s sitters’ book reads: “On Monday 6 November 1905 we had the pleasure of receiving Mr Laszlo at de Ehze,”^[5] recording the date de László came to the Van den Honert’s estate in Gorssel and began this portrait of the couple’s two children, Henriette Cornelia (1897-1984) and Taco Hajo (1899-1959).

The painting of the children was illustrated in The Studio in 1907.^[6] Otto von Schleinitz also wrote about the portrait in his book on de László, published in 1913. In his opinion this painting’s great strength was the children’s expressive eyes, which could not fail to win the heart of the viewer.^[7] The two studies for this portrait, one in pencil [7402] and the other in oils [11039], provide an insight into de László’s working method. He most probably painted the formal portrait in Vienna and had therefore made the two sketches to help him with the composition for this important portrait, which may be considered one of his masterpieces.

In April 1909, the children’s mother, Else van den Honert-Janssen wrote to de László that she was sending the portrait to Berlin, where it was to be exhibited, probably at the Schulte Galerie. Apparently the painter had just written to her telling her the duration of the exhibition, as she wrote that his letter had precipitated a most restless night; she would very much miss the portrait in the coming five months.^[8]

Henriette Cornelia married in 1921 Pieter van der Harst (born in Timor 1888), son of Gerrit van der Harst and his wife Wilhelmina, née de Ridder. Taco Hajo became a biologist and in 1928 married in Utrecht Elisabeth Revers, the daughter of Cornelis Emanuel Revers and his wife Margarethe, née Vos. They moved to Java where their three children, two sons and a daughter, were born.

EXHIBITED:

•Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung, Berlin, 28 April-30 September 1906, no. 633

•Schulte Galerie, Berlin, 1909 (to be confirmed)

•Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, De László in Holland, Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), 3 March-5 June 2006, no. 11    

LITERATURE:        

•Schleinitz, Otto (von), Künstler Monographien, n° 106, Ph A. von László, Bielefeld and Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 1913, p. 84, ill. p. 57, pl. 66

•Grever, Tonko and Annemieke Heuft (Sandra de Laszlo, British ed.), De László in Holland: Dutch Masterpieces by Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937), Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2006, pp. 28, 41, 45-47, 54, ill. no. 11

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 85, ill.

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, 23 December 1905 entry, p. 87

•DLA140-0155, Montesquiou-Fézenzac, Comte Robert (de), “Un portraitiste lyrique, Philipp Laszlô”, L’Art et les artistes, Revue d’art des deux mondes, issue 15, June 1906, p. 95, ill.

•DLA140-0212, Térey, Dr. Gabriel von, “A Hungarian Portrait Painter: Philip de László,” The Studio, Vol. 40, No. 170, 1907, pp. 254-67, ill. p. 260

•DLA036-0058, letter from Else van den Honert-Janssen to de László, 1 April 1909

•DLA140-0244, Colucci, Virginia, Un Maestro del Ritratto: Philip A. Làszló (sic), Siena: L. Lazzeri, 1910, p. 6

CWS 2006