Portrait of Jenny Goovaerts
| Dating | presumably circa 1910 |
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| Material / technique | pastel chalk and watercolour on paper |
| Dimensions | 45 x 35 cm |
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| Provenance | Charles Thewissen, Maastricht 1952 Gift by Charles Thewissen, Maastricht to Stichting Limburgs Kunstbezit 1999 Gift by Stichting Limburgs Kunstbezit to present owner |
| Current residence | Collection Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht |
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| Remarks | She was a vivacious lady: the soprano Jenny Goovaerts (1883-1949), Henri's youngest sister. Wherever she came, she immediately animated the atmosphere. When she sat on a chair with her small stocky body, her feet couldn’t reach the floor. Sitting on that chair, her feet on the lower rung, talking and making jokes, with on her lap a Limburg flan from which she cut large pieces to treat the people around her; that is how Denise Crolla remembers Jenny Goovaerts when she came over for a visit at her parents' house. Denise’s father was Alphons Crolla. In those days he was the director of the Maastricht Music School, where Jenny was a singing and solfège teacher. In his biography of Fons Olterdissen, Huub Noten calls Jenny a bossy type. She probably needed to be one since she was an unmarried non-Catholic woman in early 20th century Catholic Maastricht and she had plans. As a singer and pianist, she had already been on stage before completing her studies at the conservatory in Liège. At the beginning of the 1910s, she founded her own music school in Maastricht: Music school Goovaerts. At the same time she was appreciated as a teacher at the Maastricht Music School, where she assisted her brother-in-law Guus Olterdissen with his solfège lessons. She did this for free. At some point she wanted to be paid for her lessons, possibly because her own music school was not going well. When it turned out that she had to apply officially for this position and that even a ‘Goovaerts exam committee’ was set up, she refused to cooperate and left the Maastricht Music School. Six years later, in 1919, her own music school merged with the Maastricht Music School, which eventually made her employment as a teacher official. References: Conversation with Denise Crolla on December 11, 2015 Hans van Dijk, Henri Hermans (1883-1947): de grondlegger van het Limburgs muziekleven, Hilversum 2002 Huub Noten, ‘Jao diech höbs us aon ‘t hart gelege’. Het leven van Fons Olterdissen, Maastricht 1996 |