Portrait of Hermann Hess-Honegger
| Dating | 1904 |
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| Provenance | Hermann and Marie Hess-Honegger, Rüti, Switzerland |
| Current residence | unknown |
| Signature | b.l. in paint: Hendrik GOOVAERTS // 1904 |
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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 to Rüti, near Zürich, together with his wife Lily and their two sons, Hans and Heinz. In those days there were several wealthy owners of spinning mills and machine factories in Rüti who wanted to have themselves and their family members portrayed. Goovaerts painted portraits of successively the Weber-Honegger family, the Honegger-Sonderegger family and the Hess-Honegger family. Henri Goovaerts would remain in Rüti until 1905. Lily Goovaerts describes how the family first lived in Hotel de la Poste, then in Pension Hürlimann and finally in 'Villa zur Palme', the house of Mr. Hess-Honegger (see biographical sketch of Henri Goovaerts, written by Lily Goovaerts, in the archive of Lily Goovaerts). These residences are no longer known in Rüti today, but the villas of the Weber-Honegger and the Hess-Honegger families still exist. It is possible that with 'Villa zur Palme' Lily referred to the historicist building Villa Felsberg, which the couple Hess-Honegger had built in Rüti around 1900 in a park with different kinds of exotic trees. Hermann Hess was the son of a factory owner. He married Marie Honegger, a granddaughter of Kaspar Honegger (1820-1892), who founded the famous ‘Machinenfabrik Rüti’. In the year in which this portrait was painted, Hess himself founded the Embru furniture factory (Eisen- und Metall-Bettenfabrik Rüti), which still exists today. |