Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden

Last updated April 07, 2019

Maria Ponderus, the founder of the hofje Portrait of Maria van Aerden-Ponderus.jpg — Maria Ponderus, the founder of the hofje

The Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden is a museum and former hofje in Leerdam, Netherlands, on the Kerkstraat (numbers 57 and 89).

A hofje is a Dutch word for a courtyard with almshouses around it. They have existed since the Middle Ages.

Leerdam (Dutch: [leːrˈdɑm]; is a city and former municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht. The municipality was merged with the municipalities of Vianen and Zederik on January 1, 2019. The name of the new municipality is Vijfheerenlanden which is a part of the province Utrecht. The former municipality Leerdam was a part of the province South Holland.

The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.

It was built during the years 1770-1772 on the former location of the "Kasteel van Leerdam", a castle that was destroyed by the Spanish in 1574.^[1] The hofje was founded by Maria Ponderus, the daughter of a surgeon who at 20 married the 50-year-old widower Pieter van Aerden, notary in The Hague. She lived to 92, surviving her husband and three children, who also had no issue. She decided to leave her fortune to a hofje for women of the Protestant faith. Though she had intended her hofje for the poor of The Hague, by the time she died the most of her poor relations were living in Leerdam. Through connections with the House of Orange, the site of the old castle of Leerdam was chosen to build the hofje.^[2]

Mevrouw van Aerden, née Maria Ponderus, was an 18th-century art collector and hofje founder from the Northern Netherlands.

The Hague is a city on the western coast of the Netherlands and the capital of the province of South Holland. It is also the seat of government of the Netherlands.

Hofje seen from the southwest; on the right is the Linge river and the remains of a castle wall and tower can be seen.
The heraldic shields above the doorway are "Dr. C. van Dam van Aerden", "Dr. M. de Villaneuve", "Mevr. M. van Aerden", "Paulus Drooglever", and "Huibert de Bie".

The Linge is a river in the Betuwe that is 99.8 km long, which makes it one of the longest rivers that flow entirely within the Netherlands.

Art collection

A large collection of paintings was also left to the hofje, including paintings by leading 17th-century Dutch painters such as genre pieces by Frans Hals (1x), Cornelis de Man (1x), Dirck van der Lisse (2x), and Theodoor van Thulden (1x); portraits by Adriaen Hanneman (1x), Hendrick Cornelisz van Vliet (2x), Gerard ter Borch (2x), and Mattheus Verheyden (2x); still lifes by Pieter Claesz (1x), Cornelis de Heem (2x), Ottomar Elliger (1x), and Laurens Craen (1x); and landscapes by Hendrick Jacobsz Dubbels (2x), Philips Koninck (1x), and Jacob Salomonsz van Ruysdael (1x). These hang in the regent's rooms.

Frans Hals the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age painter, normally of portraits, who lived and worked in Haarlem. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and he helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture.

Cornelis de Man was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

Dirck van der Lisse was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

First Regent's room
Portrait of Maria Ponderus, possibly by Willem Jacob Herreyns
On the left Still life with fruit, oysters and a wineglass by Laurens Craen and on the right Achilles recognizes the daughters of Lykomedes
Achilles recognizes the daughters of Lykomedes, by a follower of Anthony van Dyck

Willem Jacob Herreyns was a Flemish painter of history subjects and portraits. He is regarded as one of the last painters in the tradition of the Flemish Baroque and the last follower of Peter Paul Rubens.

Anthony van Dyck 17th-century Flemish Baroque artist

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy.

Other Regent's room
On the left, the still life by Pieter Claesz.
Still life by Pieter Claesz.

On 28 May 2011 the paintings Two laughing boys with mug of beer by Hals and Wooded landscape by Jacob van Ruysdael were stolen. ^[3] On 2 November 2011 they were recovered. ^[4]

Dutch Rijksmonument 24041

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Hendrick Sorgh was a broker and art collector in Amsterdam.

References

Maria Ponderus on historici.nl

Coordinates: 51°53′25.29″N5°5′30.20″E / 51.8903583°N 5.0917222°E / 51.8903583; 5.0917222

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[1] Rijksmonument report

[2] Maria Ponderus on the museum website

[3] Stolen paintings

[4] Paintings recovered