Sina (Sientje) van Houten (23 December 1834

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

– 20 March 1909

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

) was the wife of

Hendrik Willem Mesdag Hendrik Willem Mesdag (23 February 1831 – 10 July 1915) was a Dutch marine painter. Biography He was born in Groningen, the son of the banker Klaas Mesdag and his wife Johanna Wilhelmina van Giffen. Mesdag was encouraged by his father ...

, the Dutch marine painter of the

Hague School The Hague School is a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the Realism (visual arts), realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school genera ...

, and a painter herself.

Biography

She was the eldest of seven children of Derk van Houten and Barbara Elisabeth Meihuizen. One of her brothers was later Minister

Samuel van Houten Samuel van Houten (17 February 1837 – 14 October 1930) was a Dutch liberal politician and philosopher, who served as Minister of the Interior from 1894 to 1897. Early life Van Houten was born in Groningen into a wealthy Mennonite family. Hi ...

. Her father had a large sawmill on the Damsterdiep. She married Mesdag on 23 April 1856. Sientje was a strong moral support to her husband, especially when she enthusiastically supported him in 1866, when he gave up his business profession solely for painting. She began to paint in 1871, after she lost her only child, the 8-year-old Klaas. Gerkens Arnaud helped her drawing, while her painting was aided by her husband and her cousin Lawrence Alma-Tadema. She specialized in landscapes and still lifes, but also painted portraits. In 1874, together with

Gerardina Jacoba van de Sande Bakhuyzen Gerardina Jacoba van de Sande Bakhuyzen (July 27, 1826–September 19, 1895), was a 19th-century painter from the Northern Netherlands. Biography She was born into a family of painters in The Hague to Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen and Sop ...

Kate Bisschop-Swift Catharina Seaton Foreman Bisschop-Swift, known as Kate (1834-1928) was an English-born Dutch painter, known primarily for her domestic scenes and still-lifes. Biography She was largely self-taught. In the late 1860s, she took some lessons from th ...

and

Margaretha Roosenboom Margaretha Roosenboom (1843 – 1896), was a 19th-century Dutch flower painter. Biography She was born in Voorburg as the daughter of Nicolaas Johannes Roosenboom and Maria Schelfhout, the daughter of Andreas Schelfhout.

, she painted "Hague orphans", a painting for the then Queen Sophie on the occasion of the 25-years royal jubilee of her husband, King Willem III. In 1881 she took part in painting the

Panorama Mesdag ''Panorama Mesdag'' is a panorama by Hendrik Willem Mesdag. Housed in a purpose-built museum in The Hague, the panorama is a cylindrical painting (also known as a Cyclorama) more than 14 metres high and about 40 metres in diameter (120 metres in c ...

. As she worked, her husband painted her portrait, working on the panorama, and in the panorama itself she is portrayed sitting behind her easel. Van Houten-Sheepfold

In 1884, one of her landscapes won a gold medal in Amsterdam she received a bronze medal in Paris for a heath landscape. In Melbourne, her work also received a bronze medal. She exhibited her work at the

Palace of Fine Arts The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition to exhibit works of art. Completely rebuilt from 1964 to ...

at the 1893

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

in Chicago, Illinois. When Sientje Mesdag was 70 years, in 1905, she had an honorary exhibition in the halls of the

Pulchri Studio Pulchri Studio (Latin:"For the study of beauty") is a Dutch art society, art institution and art studio based in The Hague ('s-Gravenhage), Netherlands. This institute began in 1847 at the home of painter Lambertus Hardenberg. Since 1893 the c ...

. Her work has been exhibited in numerous countries, including Australia, Belgium, England, France, Italy, Austria and the US. On 21 December 1904 she was named Officer in the

Order of Oranje-Nassau The Order of Orange-Nassau ( nl, Orde van Oranje-Nassau, links=no) is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands. The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has ...

. In 1906 the Mesdag-Van Houten couple celebrated their golden anniversary. She died in the Hague, on 20 March 1909. She is buried in the Oud Eik en Duinen cemetery. He husband was also buried there in 1915. In 1930 her brother Samuel was laid in the same grave. Work by Van Houten is found in the collections of the

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag The Kunstmuseum Den Haag is an art museum in The Hague in the Netherlands, founded in 1866 as the Museum voor Moderne Kunst. Later, until 1998, it was known as Haags Gemeentemuseum, and until the end of September 2019 as Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. I ...

, the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

Amsterdam, the Groningen Museum, the

Drents Museum The Drents Museum () is an art and history museum in Assen, Drenthe, in the Netherlands. The museum was opened in 1854. It has a collection of prehistorical artifacts, applied art, and visual art. The museum also has temporary exhibitions. In 20 ...

in Assen, the

Fraeylemaborg The Fraeylemaborg () is a ''borg'' in the village of Slochteren in the Netherlands. At present the Fraeylemaborg is a historic house museum. The museum had in 2013. Building history Fraeylemaborg is thmost important of the borgen in the provinc ...

in Slochteren, the in Delft and

the Mesdag Collection The Mesdag Collection is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. It is managed by the Van Gogh Museum. The museum is housed next to the former house of the Dutch painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag and shows the art Mesdag and his wife Sina van Ho ...

References

*Gerharda Hermina Marius, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, "The Hague School: Sequel", ''Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century'', 1908 * Clara Erskine Clement Waters, "Supplement" ''Women in the Fine Arts'', 1904

External links

biographical notes on Sientje Mesdag van Houten, in Dutch RKD-Archive, The Hague

free pictures of her paintings and drawings: on the website, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mesdag-van Houten, Sina 1834 births 1909 deaths 19th-century Dutch painters Dutch women painters Hague School Painters from Groningen