Portrait of Werner Weber-Honegger
| Dating | 1902 |
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| Provenance | Werner and Johanna Weber-Honegger, Rüti, Switzerland |
| Current residence | unknown |
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| Remarks | By the end of 1902 Henri Goovaerts received a large number of assignments for portraits in Switzerland. For that reason he moved with his wife Lily and their two sons, Hans and Heinz, to Rüti, near Zürich. In those days there lived a number of rich and respected owners of spinning mills and machine factories in that area who wished to be portrayed. Goovaerts made portraits of successively the Weber-Honegger family, the Honegger-Sonderegger family and the Hess-Honegger family. Henri Goovaerts would stay in Rüti until 1905. The years in Switzerland would become the best time of his life. He was popular in the circle of people he worked for and he made some trips through the Alps that made a deep impression on him. Jacob Werner Weber (1851-1912) was the son of a spinning mill owner from Bubikon in Switzerland. He married Johanna Honegger, a granddaughter of Kaspar Honegger (1820-1892), founder of Maschinenfabrik Rüti, a major textile machine factory in Rüti. From 1886 until his death Weber-Honegger was the managing director of this factory that was worldfamous at that time. About 1900 the Weber-Honegger couple belonged to the rich and established industrialist families of the Zurich highlands. Together they had eight children including two girls and a boy who deceased at a young age. In the periode 1902-1903 Henri Goovaerts portrayed the Weber-Honegger couple and their children. Five portraits of the Weber-Honegger children are known, one of which being of their daughter who was killed in accident. (Reference: "Unser Rüti vor 100 Jahren," Publication No. 72 Ortskundliche Sammlung Dürnten, February 2013) |