Provenance part I

Piet en Dina

The last known owners of the painting “Cottage with sticks” are Piet and Dina van Haren. Already well ahead of the second world war this painting hung in their kitchen.
Piet and Dina were “regular” people. In their younger years, approx. 1900 – 1930, Piet was a gardener (and coachman?) and Dina housekeeper, both in service with a rich family in the city Culemborg. They lived in the employees-house next to the villa ’s Heerenhof in Culemborg.

Now, approx. 1940, they lived in the house Bagatelle (a stone length away from ’s Heerenhof) where Piet runned his plantation.
Regularly Heleen visited them, a true lady. Also a certain “aunt Jo” visited Piet regularly. She really drew attention those days with her car and chauffeur. These visits continued, also after Dina had passed away.
There was also something about a museum director/manager from The Hague and a divorce, but I couldn’t get much further.

Other questions to be answered are: “Who is Heleen?”, “Who is aunt Jo?”. But also “what is that about the museum director?” and who lived in the villa ’s Heerenhof?

Part II, Canter Cremers, Van Hoytema, Wijsenbeek

In first instance I concentrated my search on the inhabitants of the villa ’s Heerenhof where Piet was an employee. In a book with old postcards I found a postcard of the villa ’s Heerenhof. The accompanying text said that the villa was built for the family Canter Cremers (1910). I also regularly ran into the name Van Hoytema, sometimes in combination with the name Canter Cremers. It looked as if the both families were one sometimes. This became clear later on when I visited the family graves. Both the Van Hoytema’s and the Canter Cremers share the same graves. This wouldn’t simplify my search as the names could be confused easily.

A quick search on the internet was without result. The name Van Hoytema was found often but the name Canter Cremers gave practically no results. I ran into the name Wijsenbeek though which also somehow was related with the names Van Hoytema and Canter Cremers. Luckily about this family a lot can be found thanks the extensive history-writing about jewish families.

The Van Hoytema’s were a family of wealth and standing. Within the family art-lovers can be found. As an example, Daniël van Hoytema once ordered the famous painter Springer to make a painting of his factory at the Veerweg in Culemborg.

After a lot of research I discovered to whom Heleen was married. The newspapers wrote dat Mr. Van Hoytema, when he heard about the wedding, had run onto the street and had expressed his disapproval that “one of us married below her standing and not only that but also with a jew”. This also clearly illustrates the tightness between the two families as the bride Heleen actually was a Canter Cremers! In 1938 she married Louis Wijsenbeek, the director of the Munipical Museum of The Hague.