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Vosmaer [31] believed that the classical principles of the pure and high art of antiquity and the Renaissance could be the guiding principle for an artistic and moral regeneration of the sluggish Dutch culture of the late nineteenth century. His cultural model, however, was not limited to the canon of Greek sculpture passed on through Roman and Italian art, or the paintings of Raphael and the techniques of the old masters. Contemporary Italian folk life, in which the ‘classical spirit’ had been preserved, was also a source of inspiration.

For Vosmaer, the folk life genre also had clear political connotations. The unspoilt state of man and nature on the Italian countryside served as a critical mirror for modern society.¹ At the same time, the ‘classical’ purity of the Italian rural people held the promise of a better future for a people who had endured centuries of oppression and exploitation. For Vosmaer, the cult of antiquity, genre painting and the Risorgimento went hand in hand. And he found confirmation for all these ideas in Jan Hendrik Koelman.²

The encounter with the painter would provide Vosmaer with the inspiration for a character in his posthumously published novel Inwijding (1888). This character named Wybrand, an old, wise Dutch painter in Rome, was in fact the embodiment of Vosmaer’s own neoclassical views. In the novel, the newlywed Dutch couple Frank and Sietske travel to Rome. Frank ‘initiates’ his wife into classical art and culture and the southern way of life, but once in Rome, Wybrand becomes their true mentor.

Vosmaer’s novel is pervaded with nostalgia for early nineteenth-century Rome, the time of Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) and the old Prix de Rome ironically suspended from 1851 to 1870, partly due to the actions of Jan Hendrik Koelman. This did not prevent Vosmaer from projecting his nostalgia onto Koelman, in a kaleidoscopic vision in which not only Dutch national traditions and the classical inspiration of Rome, but also anti-clerical and republican views were perfectly complementary. For Vosmaer, the ultimate representation of this synergy was the sight of Wybrands – Koelman’s – studio on Via dell’Olmo [32]:

'It was a spacious room with a high ceiling, full of boxes, cupboards and easels; on the walls were dusty casts of heads and bas-reliefs, a few painted studies and a flintlock rifle with a cartridge box; the furniture was covered with richly coloured fabrics, silk robes from Albano and Ariccia, books, toys and portfolios; amongst all this, on the easels, a Venus Medici; on the tables: drawing materials, papers, a fiasco in a wicker basket; carpentry tools, an old-fashioned Dutch tobacco pot, and a hundred small objects; a veritable mess. All of this so strangely in contrast to the extreme neatness and purity of Wybrand’s artwork, but in keeping with the republican simplicity of the man, with his worn doublet, neckerchief, cap and grey beard, and his Gouda pipe with a cap made from a folded playing card.'³

Jan Hendrik Koelman did not live to see the publication of Inwijding. He died on 1 February 1887 and was buried at the Campo Verano cemetery, where his wife Enrichetta, his son Romolo and daughter-in-law Laura, née Hazelhoff Roelfsema (1852-1920), would later be laid to rest [33].

31
Maurits Verveer
Portrait of Carel Vosmaer (1826-1888)
The Hague, RKD – Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis (Collectie Iconografisch Bureau)

32
Romolo Koelman,
The artist’s workshop on the Via dell’Olmo in Rome, 1876,
oil on canvas, 89 × 138 cm,
Gallerie Nazionali d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome, inv. no. 1883

33
Funerary monument for J.H. Koelman (1820-1887), E. Koelman-Fioroni (1806-1892), R. Koelman (1847-1912) and L. Koelman-Hazelhoff (1852-1920),
Campo Verano, Rome. Photo Asker Pelgrom