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Indian Thornapple (Datura metel)
Alida Withoos, c. 1680 - before c. 1700
- Artwork typedrawing, aquarel
- Object numberRP-T-1948-116
- Dimensionsheight 332 mm x width 225 mm
- Physical characteristicswatercolour, over traces of graphite
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Identification
Title(s)
Indian Thornapple (Datura metel)
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1948-116
Part of catalogue
Creation
Creation
draughtsman: Alida Withoos
Dating
c. 1680 - before c. 1700
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Material and technique
Physical description
watercolour, over traces of graphite
Dimensions
height 332 mm x width 225 mm
This work is about
Subject
Acquisition and rights
Acquisition
purchase 1948-03-30
Copyright
Provenance
…; sale, Dr Ernst Heinrich Krelage (1869-1956, Haarlem), Amsterdam (M. Hertzberger), 30 March 1948, no. 335, with inv. nos. RP-T-1948-114 and RP-T-1948-115, fl. 38 for all, to the museum (L. 2228), 1948
Remarks
Please note that this provenance was formulated with a special focus on provenance research for the years 1933-45 and could therefore be incomplete. There may be more (mostly earlier) provenance information known in the museum. In case this item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45, the Rijksmuseum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
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Alida Withoos
Indian Thornapple (Datura metel)
c. 1680 - before c. 1700
Inscriptions
signed: lower right corner, in brown ink, Alida Withoos
inscribed: lower right corner, in pencil, 21
inscribed on verso: in pencil, ? in a nineteenth-century hand, Datura Fastuosa Lin. / fl: plino
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: Strasbourg lily
Condition
Foxing throughout
Provenance
…; sale, Dr Ernst Heinrich Krelage (1869-1956, Haarlem), Amsterdam (M. Hertzberger), 30 March 1948, no. 335, with inv. nos. RP-T-1948-114 and RP-T-1948-115, fl. 38 for all, to the museum (L. 2228), 1948
Object number: RP-T-1948-116
The artist
Biography
Alida Withoos (Amersfoort c. 1661 - Amsterdam 1730)
She was the daughter of the Amersfoort painter Matthias Withoos (1627-1703) and Wendelina van Hoorn (1618-c. 1680). Alida and several of her siblings were trained by their father.1Alida had seven siblings, four of them became artists: Pieter (1654/1655-1692), Johannes (?-?), Maria (1663-1699/1710) and Frans (1665-1705); cf. M.W. Heijenga-Klomp, ‘Matthias Withoos (ca. 1627-1703) en zijn kinderen. Een Amersfoortse schildersfamilie’, Flehite, Historisch Jaarboek voor Amersfoort en omstreken (2005), pp. 124-31. In 1672, when the French threatened to siege Amersfoort, the family moved to Hoorn.
According to Arnold Houbraken, whom Alida knew personally,2Alida was Houbraken’s source for the biography of her father; cf. M. Russell, ‘The Women Painters in Houbraken's Groote Schouburgh’, Woman's Art Journal, 2 (1981), no. 1, pp. 7-11. she drew flowers, fruit and small animals in oils and watercolours.3L. Missel inventoried fifty-nine sheets; cf. https://library.wur.nl/speccol/Alida/Alida_Main/varia.htm#tekeningen, accessed 1 July 2020. She also made still life and landscape paintings in the style of her father, which she often signed with her full name.4L. Missel, De wereld van Alida Withoos (1662-1730). Botanisch tekenares in de Gouden Eeuw, https://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/fulltext/333155, accessed 1 July 2020.
Withoos moved within a network of prominent (flower) painters and collectors. In 1687, horticulturist and art collector Agnes Block (1629-1704) invited her to draw and paint the flowers in her garden at her estate ‘Vijverhof’ in Loenen aan de Vecht, near Utrecht. Alida also drew the Block’s famous homegrown pineapple – the first in Europe – which Block had cultivated in her one of her hothouses. The drawings made by Withoos at Vijverhof apparently did not survive.5The Rijksmuseum holds one Album of Flowers containing unsigned drawings of several masters (inv. no. RP-T-1948-119); it is quite likely that some of these drawings were made by Alida. Withoos made twelve drawings of plants in the Amsterdam Hortus Medicus for the Moninckx Atlas (1686-1706), which is now preserved in the University of Amsterdam (inv. no. Hs. VI G 1-9), and contributed six sheets to the Konstboeck (c. 1690-1750) of Simon Schijnvoet (1653-1727), now kept at the Special Collections in the Library of Wageningen University.
In 1701, at age thirty-nine, Alida married painter Andries Cornelisz van Dalen (1672-?).6They posted their marriage banns in both Hoorn and Amsterdam; cf. L. Missel, ‘Withoos, Alida’, Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/WithoosAlida, accessed 20 March 2020. The couple lived in the Anjeliersstraat in Amsterdam. It is quite likely that she stopped painting after her marriage: there are no dated works known after 1700, nor is she mentioned in records related to commissions. Alternatively, she might have assisted her husband in his workshop. Alida was buried on 5 December 1730 in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam.7Ibid.
Carolyn Mensing, 2020
References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 188; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXVI (1947), pp. 116-17 (as W[ithoos]s Tochter Alida); E. Kloek et al., ‘Lexicon van Noord-Nederlandse kunstenaressen, circa 1550-1800’, in E. Kloek et al., Vrouwen en kunst in de Republiek. Een overzicht, Hilversum 1998, p. 174; K. Van der Stighelen and M. Westen, Elck zijn waerom. Vrouwelijke kunstenaars in België en Nederland, 1500-1950, Ghent 1999, p. 196; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 221; M.W. Heijenga-Klomp, ‘Matthias Withoos (ca. 1627-1703) en zijn kinderen. Een Amersfoortse schildersfamilie’, Flehite, Historisch Jaarboek voor Amersfoort en omstreken (2005), pp. 129-30; L. Missel, ‘Withoos, Alida’, Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/WithoosAlida
Entry
The Indian thornapple (Datura metel) is cultivated all across Europe, but is native to Asia and North and South America. It develops multiple branches and can grow more than six feet tall. The plant is very poisonous; ingestion can be fatal in humans and other mammals. It has therefore been used a venom as well as a delirium during spiritual rituals.
Withoos’s drawing is somewhat harsh, and her rendering of this poisonous plant lacks the refinement that we see in some of her other works in the Rijksmuseum’s collection, such as inv. no. RP-T-1948-114. She also drew the plant too large; she ran out of space at the right side of the sheet, having to cut off parts of the large leaf.
The present sheet and inv. nos. RP-T-1948-114 and RP-T-1948-115 were bought at the 1948 sale of Ernst Heinrich Krelage (1869-1956). The Krelage family ran an internationally renowned business in Haarlem, Krelage Nursery, which specialized in the cultivation of flower bulbs, lilies and dahlias. The family also owned a large collection of horticultural books and related artworks.8A collection of 1300 books was donated to Wageningen University in 1916, but the rarest and oldest holdings from the Krelage library were auctioned. The Rijksmuseum probably bought a Tulpenboek by Jacob Marrel (1614-1681) at this sale, since it contains the ex-libris of Krelage on the first page (inv. no. RP-T-1950-266). For more information on the collection, see ‘The Krelage Collection’, https://www.wur.nl/en/Library/Special-Collections/Books-journals/Krelage-collection.htm; accessed 2 July 2020.
Carolyn Mensing, 2020
Citation
C. Mensing, 2020, 'Alida Withoos, Indian Thornapple (Datura metel), c. 1680 - before c. 1700', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145618
(accessed 6 December 2025 23:28:02).Footnotes
- 1Alida had seven siblings, four of them became artists: Pieter (1654/1655-1692), Johannes (?-?), Maria (1663-1699/1710) and Frans (1665-1705); cf. M.W. Heijenga-Klomp, ‘Matthias Withoos (ca. 1627-1703) en zijn kinderen. Een Amersfoortse schildersfamilie’, Flehite, Historisch Jaarboek voor Amersfoort en omstreken (2005), pp. 124-31.
- 2Alida was Houbraken’s source for the biography of her father; cf. M. Russell, ‘The Women Painters in Houbraken's Groote Schouburgh’, Woman's Art Journal, 2 (1981), no. 1, pp. 7-11.
- 3L. Missel inventoried fifty-nine sheets; cf. https://library.wur.nl/speccol/Alida/AlidaMain/varia.htm#tekeningen, accessed 1 July 2020.
- 4L. Missel, De wereld van Alida Withoos (1662-1730). Botanisch tekenares in de Gouden Eeuw, https://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/fulltext/333155, accessed 1 July 2020.
- 5The Rijksmuseum holds one Album of Flowers containing unsigned drawings of several masters (inv. no. RP-T-1948-119); it is quite likely that some of these drawings were made by Alida.
- 6They posted their marriage banns in both Hoorn and Amsterdam; cf. L. Missel, ‘Withoos, Alida’, Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/WithoosAlida, accessed 20 March 2020.
- 7Ibid.
- 8A collection of 1300 books was donated to Wageningen University in 1916, but the rarest and oldest holdings from the Krelage library were auctioned. The Rijksmuseum probably bought a Tulpenboek by Jacob Marrel (1614-1681) at this sale, since it contains the ex-libris of Krelage on the first page (inv. no. RP-T-1950-266). For more information on the collection, see ‘The Krelage Collection’, https://www.wur.nl/en/Library/Special-Collections/Books-journals/Krelage-collection.htm; accessed 2 July 2020.