10402

PRESUMED DESTROYED

Antonius Johannes Jurgens 1919

Standing three-quarter length slightly to the left looking to the viewer, wearing jacket, tie and waistcoat with a pocket watch and holding a pair of gloves in his right hand, a coat draped over that arm and holding a hat in his left hand

Oil [support and dimensions unknown]

Laib L9029 (7) / C14 (4A): Mr. Jurgens Jurgens [sic]

NPG 1917-21 Album, f. 94

Sitters’ Book II, f. 12: Anton Jurgens Hzn^[1] oct. 25. 1919.

After the First World War de László returned to work with renewed vigour. His clientele in the Netherlands, too, continued to grow, largely thanks to the contacts he had made there before the war and in particular through his friendship with Adriana van Riemsdijk [110706]. By the summer of 1919 he had painted three portraits for the Jurgens family.

Antonius Johannes ‘Anton’ Jurgens worked from a young age in the family firm of Antoon Jurgens, traders in butter and margarine, established by his father, uncles and grandfather. When the old firm was dissolved in 1902, Anton established the Anton Jurgens Margarine Fabrieken and four years later he opened his first factory in England. In 1906 he built the Huize Belvoir on the river Waal in Nijmegen, the house becoming popularly known as ‘the Butter Dish.’ In 1921 Anton moved to England to concentrate on his business there, although he kept Huize Belvoir as a business address until 1931, when it was sold to the municipality. In 1930 he fused his Margarine Unie with the British soap manufacturer Lever Brothers, thus creating Unilever.^[2] During the liberation of Nijmegen in the autumn of 1944 the ‘Butter Dish’ was entirely destroyed.

The sitter was born in Oss on 8 February 1867, the son of Hendrikus Leonardus Jurgens, of Oss (1840-1888), and Theodora van Waardenburg of Lithoyen (1840-1899). He married Marie Hélène Léonie Verbruggen (1865-1952) and together they had one son, Henricus Wilhelmus ‘Henri’ (1892-1933). Anton Jurgens died on 12 March 1945 in Torquay, Devon, and was re-buried in Paris in the family tomb in 1954.

The three other Jurgens portraits were of Henri Jurgens [10403], painted in 1919, and two of his daughter-in-law, Sophica Jurgens-Roidi [2030] & [2027], also painted in that year. The present portrait and that of Henri remain untraced and are presumed destroyed together with the family home during the Second World War.^[3]

LITERATURE:         

•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. 61, 63-65, ill. no. 31

•Jurgens, M.A.J. & F.J.M. van de Ven, Jurgens, generaties in beweging. 350 jaren kooplieden en fabrikanten, 1993, ill. p. 82

•Nederlands Patriciaat, 1999, p. 202

•Ven, F.J.M. (van de), Anton Jurgens Hzn 1867-1945: Europees ondernemer – Bouwer van een wereldconcern, 2005, ill. cover 

CWS 2006