- Written by L.C.Geerts
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Famous Dutch Painters from Dordrecht, Ancient Capital of Holland
Part 25
60. Michiel Versteegh
61. Jan Veth
62. Alexander Wüst

Note : Please do not email me with technical questions about paintings and their age and origin because I am not an expert but I only have gathered information about the Painters from the Netherlands and specially from Dordrecht.
Dordrecht is not only known as the oldest city and ancient capital of Holland but also for the many famous painters who were born or lived in Dordrecht during the late Middle ages and later centuries.
On the next pages you can find many works from these famous painters who were responsible for many styles of paintings and they immortalized the daily life and landscapes in the 15th to 19th century. Most of their masterpieces are nowadays part of collections in museums all over the world and of which many can be seen in the local Dordrechts Museum.
Michiel Versteegh
Dordrecht 1756 - Dordrecht 1843
Michiel Versteegh was born in Dordrecht. No information of him is available than only that he was a collector of paintings and other art. After his dead in 1843 his estates was auctioned by Geluk and Mak van Waay, entrepreneurs of public sale shall, in Dordrecht on April 14, 1847, under the direction of the Painters Frans .J. van den Blijk and H.F. Verheggen.
Female in a bay by candlelight
Michiel Versteegh
Oil on panel 34,4 x 27,2 cm
Dordrechts museum
An elegant couple Counting money by candlelight, at a stone niche
Michiel Versteegh, 1779
Oil on panel 51.7 x 40.7 cm
Private collection
Smoking a pipe
Michiel Versteegh
Ink and gouache on paper 22.5 x 20.5 cm
Private collection
Astronomers at a Table by Candlelight
Michiel Versteegh
Pencil, pen and black ink, black wash heightened with white 22,3 x 30,5 cm
Private collection
Jan Veth
Dordrecht 1864 - Amsterdam 1925
Jan Veth (1864-1925) was a man of many talents. In addition to his activities as a painter and a graphic artist he wrote art reviews and poems. Above all, though, he was a successful portraitist. The exhibition centers on portraits of artists and writers. Portraits of artists, including those of George Breitner, Jozef Israels, Willem Maris, Jacob Maris and Hendrik Mesdag, are displayed among their watercolors, gouaches, drawings, sketchbooks and prints from the museum's collection. Portraits of writers such as Louis Couperus, Lodewijk van Deijssel, Frederik van Eeden and Jacobus van Looy are shown in combination with their finest book-covers. There is also a gallery with portraits of art collectors, museum directors, scholars, politicians and so forth. The atmosphere of the period during which Jan Veth and his contemporaries lived is evoked in the exhibition by examples of decorative art, including furniture, vases, lamps and rugs.
Partly by his litho images of his contemporaries he was one of the most famous artists of his time. In the twenties he was professor at the State Academy in Amsterdam. Besides painting Vethj was a writer. As a poet he belonged to the circle of the Eighties and was member of the literary magazine The New Guide. Around the turn of the century he was one of the first real art critics.
Portrait of Jacobus van Looy
Jan Veth
Paper, black and red chalk, paintbrush in black, 38 x 31 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Laren's child
Jan Veth, 1886
Oil on canvas 38,1 x 25,9 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Lambertus Zijl
Jan Veth
Oil on canvas 42 x 33 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Dr. H.J. (Hein) Boeken
Jan Veth, 1887
Oil on canvas 52,7 x 37,5 cm
Dordrechts Museum
From 1884 Veth is a member of the literary establishment in Amsterdam "Flanor" association. He meets the new generation of writers, including Kloss, Verwey, Van Deyssel, Van Eeden and writer and classicist Hein Boeken (1861-1933). His portrait is an exhibition of Arti refused in favor of the portrait of Frank van der Goes. Veth writes: " Boeken is returned, I will not have fun of the work but I am convinced of, not by the defects but by the qualities. "
Heintje, a Gooi's girl
Jan Veth, 1891
Oil on canvas 46 x 38,5 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Heintje was repeatedly a model for Veth. In this painting he paints a refined and dreamy image of that fishing-girl from Huizen. Artists such as Jan Veth, Richard Roland Holst and Wally Moes saw in the women from this village a "Gooise" model of purity and innocence. Several of these women were portrayed by them.
Portrait of Prof. August Allebé
Jan Veth
Oil on canvas and panel 45,3 x 39,8 cm
Dordrechts Museum
The portrait of August Allebé, Professor Director of the National Academy of Visual Arts in Amsterdam, is one of the best portraits painted by Jan Veth. The esteemed teacher of a whole generation of painters, is here with loving attention put down. The portrait shows us the older artist in the year 1907, more than 20 years after Jan Veth received his first lessons from Allebé at the Stadhouderskade.
Portrait of G.H. Veth, father of the artist
Jan Veth, 1900
Oil on panel 46 x 40 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Veth portrayed his father at the age of 82. Gerards Veth was salesman in old iron, but in his hometown Dordrecht he was especially known as councilor, alderman and connoisseur and collector of Dordrecht painters from the 17th and 18th century.
Portrait of Mrs. K.C. Boxman - Winkler
Jan Veth, 1906
Oil on canvas on panel 25 x 20 cm
Dordrechts Museum
About this portrait of the writer Klazina Winkler, Jozef Israels wrote to Veth: " It is characteristic very extraordinary. It's like Holbein signed, but voilà la question (but I ask you): should it not have been treated and signed as a Veth? ". Holbein and Dürer were for the portrait painter Veth major examples, even as the sixteenth-century German masters, Veth sought in the image of human face a major natural fidelity. Winkler Klazina he knew well. She lived in Bussum, not far from the family Veth. For many years she readed Jan Veth's manuscripts before publication and were on amicable terms with each other in correspondence.
Portrait of Frank van der Goes
Jan Veth, 1887
Oil on canvas 108,3 x 87,5 cm
Dordrechts Museum
The writer Frank van der Goes (1859-1934) was one of the founders of "De Nieuwe Gids", which he cooperated years. He was the first theorist of the in 1894 established 'parliamentary' SDAP. With Gorter, Roland Holst and Saks he was the editor of the Marxist magazine "De Nieuwe Tijd". Following the reviews of this portrait Van der Goes wrote on November 2, 1888: " I have read in the "Handelsblad" that now nobody would have pleased his puss with your green-gray paint on it. This is not very pleasant for people, whose portrait is preceded by a publication with this warning. Now, it's good for me, but never again! "
Portrait of Max Liebermann
Jan Veth, 1904
Oil on canvas 67,8 x 53,4 cm
Dordrechts Museum
The German painter Max Liebermann (1847-1935) often worked in the Netherlands. Particularly in the Amsterdam Jewsish area he found inspiration for cityscapes, interiors and market scenes. Jan Veth met Liebermann for the first time in 1886 in Laren, this meeting would be the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Veth wrote in 1904: "Under Liebermann continuous and strenuous criticism I have learned more than the adoption of less critical patients." In 1929 the widow of Veth donated this portrait, together with a number of other works, to the Dordrecht Museum. During the second world war the work was removed by the Germans. The museum was able to acquire the portrait again in 1992.
Self portrait
Jan Veth
Oil on canvas 35 x 26,1 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Jan Veth is characterized as a scholar and an artist and artistic scientist. In 1886, when this self-portrait was created, he had still to make all true. He was 22 years old and stood at the beginning of his career. In thought he is the tail, a promising artist with an intelligent face. Veth had a brilliant career ahead. Not only would he become a master in portraiture, but also a respected art historian and writer. Around 1900 he was one of the first art critics. He received an honorary doctorate and became professor at the State Academy in Amsterdam.
Portrait of mister A.J. Lebret
Jan Veth, 1920
Oil on canvas 66,8 x 50,6 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Anna Cornelia Veth-Giltay, mother of the artist
Jan Veth
Oil on panel 13,3 x 10,5 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Street in Naarden
Jan Veth
Oil on canvas on panel 32,8 x 25,8 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Dr. H.G. Samson
Jan Veth, 1893
Oil on canvas on panel 52,4 x 43,7 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Frans Lebret
Jan Veth
Oil on canvas 74,5 x 64,2 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of the painter Maurits Willem van der Valk
Veth, Jan, 1929
Oil on canvas 43,1 x 35 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Mrs. H.J.E. Wertheim Salomonson-Hijmans
Jan Veth, 1908
Oil on panel 65,6 x 51,7 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Prof. Dr. Pieter Johannes Veth
Jan Veth, 1886
Oil on canvas on panel 100,5 x 80 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Prof. Anton Derkinderen
Jan Veth, 1915
Oil on canvas 117,2 x 89,8 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Elisabeth Ragazzi-van den Wall Bake
Jan Veth
Oil on canvas 41,7 x 35,7 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of W.H.J. Oderwald
Jan Veth, 1925
Oil on canvas 67,4 x 54,7 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Shipyard
Veth, Jan
Oil on panel 16,7 x 32,9 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Portrait of Heintje
Jan Veth, 1891
Paper, red-brown and en black chalk
Dordrechts Museum
Alexander Wüst
Dordrecht 1837 - Antwerp 1876
Alexander Wust was born in Dordrecht and moved to Antwerp about 1850s Shortly after he moved, lived and studied in New York, painting primarily in the Adirondack region and in New England. He exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Brooklyn Art Association. At the end of his life he returned to Antwerp where he shortly after died in 1876.
Pond in wooded area
Alexander Wüst
Oil on canvas on panel 24 x 33,2 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Mount Desert landscape in moonlight
Alexander Wüst
panel 59,2 x 83 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Native American hunter alongside a woodland creek with other companions in front of their tipis
Alexander Ferdinand Wust, 1869
oil on canvas 45.5" x 20"
Private collection
Sunset landscape
Alexander Ferdinand Wust, 1868
Oil on canvas 45.7 x 80.2 cm
Private collection
Fire at twilight
Alexander Ferdinand Wust
Oil on paper laid on canvas 20.3 x 40.6 cm
Private collection
That's it