RKD Podcast: Sophia Adriana Lopez Suasso-de Bruijn
The fifth episode in the podcast series on women collectors is available (in Dutch) on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast apps. In it, Caspar Stalenhoef talks to Dorine Maat about Sophia Adriana Lopez Suasso-de Bruijn (1816-1890), a collector with a predilection for decorative art.
Art taste in domestic life
The Amsterdam merchant's daughter Sophia Adriana de Bruijn remained unmarried for a long time, although in 1851 she was already registered at the same address as her later husband Augustus Pieter Lopez Suasso (1804-1877). They marry in 1860 and they remain childless. They find each other in their love of travelling and collecting. They each have their own preferences. Whereas Augustus Pieter mainly collects coins, Sophia Adriana mainly collects fashion, jewelry, furniture, miniature silver and ceramics. After the death of her husband, Sophia Adriana continues collecting, with the underlying wish of founding a museum ‘with art taste in the domestic life of our ancestors’.
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
After her death in 1890, Sophia Adriana left her house and collection to the city of Amsterdam. Five years later, in 1895, the Stedelijk Museum was opened. The founders make use of her legacy, and period rooms in the museum are furnished with objects from the Suasso-de Bruijn collection. Sophia Adriana's collection then receives press attention, initially neutral but then increasingly negative. The decorative art from her collection does not appear to be much liked by the curators of the Stedelijk Museum – she is even portrayed as an eccentric, mercantile woman.
Amsterdam Museum
In the 1970s, the Suasso-de Bruijn collection is moved to the depot of the Amsterdam Museum. In this century more attention is paid to Sophia Adriana and her collection, resulting in the pieces also leaving the depot. Historian Dorine Maat works as a researcher at the Amsterdam Museum and is currently writing a biographical publication on Sophia Adriana Lopez Suasso-de Bruijn. She is using the work of Hester Wandel, as well as conducting her own research in the Suasso-de Bruijn family archives. A relatively large amount of material has survived, including letters, travel reports and other personal documents. In the press documentation at the RKD, at the City Archives Amsterdam and on the Delpher website, Dorine found additional information about the image of Sophia Adriana. As a result, she manages to tell fascinatingly about the life and collection of this female collector.
Women collectors
The podcast series on female collectors ties in with the project The Other Half, about women in the Dutch art world in the two hundred years between 1780 and 1980. These episodes are co-sponsored by the Wilhelmina Drucker Fundatie.