Lucia Wijbrants
Encyclopedia
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, October 21, 1638 - Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
, May 23, 1719) was the daughter of Johannes Wijbrants, a silk merchant, whose ancestors had moved from Stavoren
Stavoren
Stavoren is a small town on the coast of the IJsselmeer, about 5 km south of Hindeloopen. It lies within the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân. Stavoren was granted city rights in 1118, making it the oldest city in Friesland...
to Antwerp.
After 1585 when Antwerp was occupied by the Spanish army, the family moved to Amsterdam and lived in a house in the Warmoesstraat
Warmoesstraat
Warmoesstraat is one of the oldest streets in Amsterdam, running parallel to the river Amstel from Amsterdam Centraal railway station to Dam Square. Its origins are in the 13th century. In the 16th and 17th century it was the shopping street...
, then a fashionable shopping street. They had eight more children: only Hendrick (1623–1669), Helena (1628–1721), and Johannes (1638 - ?) survived.
Jan J. Hinlopen
Lucia grew up at Keizersgracht 213. On December 9, 1664 she gave notice to her marriage with Jan J. Hinlopen; she was accompanied by her mother, Machteld Pater. On January 6, 1665 the couple married in the Nieuwe KerkNieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam)
The Nieuwe Kerk is a 15th-century church in Amsterdam, located on Dam Square, next to the Royal Palace.-History:The bishop of Utrecht gave the city of Amsterdam permission to use a second the parish church in 1408 because the Oude Kerk had grown too small for the growing population of the city....
. Jan Vos
Jan Vos (poet)
Jan Jansz. Vos was a Dutch playwright and poet. A glassmaker by trade , he also played an important role as stage-manager and director of the theatre...
wrote a poem for the happy occasion. On November 13, 1665 Lucia gave birth to a still born child, buried the next day. In 1666 Hinlopen commissioned a painting from Bartholomeus van der Helst
Bartholomeus van der Helst
Bartholomeus van der Helst was a Dutch portrait painter.-Biography:Born in Haarlem, the son of a Haarlem innkeeper, Van der Helst moved to Amsterdam some time before 1636, for he was married there in that year...
of the 27-years-old Lucia, himself and three hunting dogs, but showing his deceased first wife and children in the background. In September 1666 Jan J. Hinlopen, rather stocky built, died at the age of forty. Lucia lived with her two stepchildren on Kloveniersburgwal, next to her brother-in-law Jacob J. Hinlopen
Jacob J. Hinlopen
Jacob J. Hinlopen lived in a house with Hinlopen in the gable, now at 155 Nieuwendijk. He traded in cloth and Indian wares. In 1602 he was co-founder of the Dutch East India Company in Enkhuizen, his descendants inherited very old stocks. He also was the first person of Flemish origin, that in...
.
Having a portrait of yourself became very popular in the Netherlands after 1660, and a portrait functioned as a sort of a personal web page
Personal web page
Personal web pages are World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature rather than on behalf of an employer or institution. Personal web pages are often used solely for informative or entertainment purposes....
. Lucia Wijbrants had herself painted in 1666 by Lodewijk van der Helst (1642–1684). This painting by the son of Bartholomeus van der Helst
Bartholomeus van der Helst
Bartholomeus van der Helst was a Dutch portrait painter.-Biography:Born in Haarlem, the son of a Haarlem innkeeper, Van der Helst moved to Amsterdam some time before 1636, for he was married there in that year...
is now in the Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)
The Museum of Fine Arts is a museum in Heroes' Square, Budapest, Hungary, facing the Palace of Art.It was built by the plans of Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herzog in an eclectic-neoclassical style, between 1900 and 1906. The museum's collection is made up of international art , including all...
. According to her will on June, 27, 1716, she had her portrait painted by Gabriel Metsu
Gabriel Metsu
Gabriël Metsu was a Dutch painter of history paintings, genre works and portraits.- Life :Metsu was the son of the Flemish painter Jacques Metsu , who lived most of his days at Leiden, and Jacomijntje Garniers, his third wife, whom he married in 1625. Jacomijntje was the widow of a painter with...
. Metsu painted only a few portraits in his lifetime; the resemblance with the one from 1667, now in Minneapolis, and two other portraits of Lucia is striking. On the painting one can see a chandelier. It could be one of the two silver chandeliers given by Joan Huydecoper II
Joan Huydecoper II
Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen II was the eldest son of burgomaster Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen I and the brother-in-law of the collector Jan J. Hinlopen and the sheriff Jacob Boreel. He was mayor of Amsterdam for 13 terms between 1673 and 1693...
and his wife to the parents of Sara Hinlopen on September 10, 1660, two months after her birth.
Holstein
Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....
painter, who from time to time lived in Amsterdam. If he would die before her, she would inherit 8.000 guilders and the inventory, but not the library, nor the portraits. In the same year she claimed from the estate of her late husband. In 1718 the ladies Hinlopen received the a diamond ring, a necklace with 39 pearls, two silver chandeliers, a silver box, a silver comb and an oval silver plate(?) from their former stepmother.
When she died, it seems, everybody important attended her funeral in Westerkerk
Westerkerk
The Westerkerk is a church of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands denomination in Amsterdam, built in 1620-1631 after a design by Hendrick de Keyser. It is next to Amsterdam's Jordaan district, on the bank of the Prinsengracht canal....
. She was related to Jan Commelin
Jan Commelin
Jan Commelin , also known as Jan Commelijn or Johannes Commelinus, was the son of Isaac Commelin a historian; his brother Casparus was a bookseller and newspaper publisher. Jan a botanist became a professor of botany when many plants were imported from the Cape and Ceylon and a new system had to be...
and Caspar Commelin, two famous Dutch botanists. Her sister Helena and Machteld Wijbrants, her niece, inherited all her belongings. Machteld on her turn left everything to Hester Hinlopen. In the 19th century the portrait of Lucia belonged to Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer, Freiherr von Rothschild , known as Nathan Mayer Rothschild, was a London financier and one of the founders of the international Rothschild family banking dynasty...
. Since 1992 the painting can be seen in the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Johan van Nellesteyn
Van Nellesteyn was a burgomasterBurgomaster
Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...
in the city of Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
in the years 1654–1656, 1658–1660, 1664, 1665. After his second wife, Hillegonda Pater, had died in 1670 married Lucia Wijbrants. In 1672, a year which is called by the Dutch the disaster year
Rampjaar
The rampjaar was the year 1672 in Dutch history. In that year,the Republic of the Seven United Provinces was after the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War and the Third Anglo-Dutch War attacked by England, France, and the prince-electors Bernhard von Galen, bishop of Münster and Maximilian Henry of...
, Johan van Nellesteyn and his wife were fleeing from Utrecht, when the city was occupied by the French army under Louis XIV. Nellesteyn and his brother-in-law, Jacob Martens, moved their belongings to Amsterdam by boat. On their way back a few months later, Nellesteyn was attacked by the orangist mob, who regarded him as a traitor. Nellesteyn was one of the few members of the vroedschap
Vroedschap
The vroedschap was the name for the city council in the early modern Netherlands; the member of such a council was called a vroedman, literally a "wise man"...
reappointed by William III of Orange
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
after 1672.