Willem de Zwart Dutch, 1862-1931

Kunsthandel L.J. Krüger, The Hague
Kunsthandel, Van Voorst van Beest, The Hague
Collection P.K. Baaij, Schoten

Richard Bionda, Willem de Zwart 1862-1931, Haarlem 1984, p. 45, colour illustration 52, p. 90

According to Bionda this work can be dated circa 1895

Willem de Zwart was born as the oldest son of a carriage painter in 1862. Initially, it was intended that Willem would learn the same trade. In 1876, however, he enrolled for education at the academy in The Hague. Two years later, he was apprenticed to Jacob Maris, where he met many prominent painters of the Hague School. Restlessness and financial troubles haunted him constantly. After a moving around quite a bit, he returned to The Hague around 1885 and settled on the Beeklaan, where Breitner also lived before he moved to Amsterdam in 1886. Paintings from those years remind of Breitner’s work and thus De Zwart forms a connection between the Hague School and the Amsterdamse School. In 1894, he left The Hague for the area near Utrecht and Het Gooi. From those days onwards, his style became less subtle and flowing.

De Zwart belonged, together with W. B. Tholen and Théophile de Bock, to the greatest masters of the third generation of the Hague School. He painted landscapes, townscapes, still lifes and portraits. In addition, he worked at the porcelain factory of Rozenburg and made numerous sketches.

On 5 August 1889, Maria Hendrika, the daughter of Willem the Zwart and his wife Maria Helena Reevers, was born. He immortalised the girl strikingly in this fluently painted and lively impression.