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.¹¹Alida 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,²²Alida 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.³³L. 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.⁴⁴L. 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.⁵⁵The 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-?).⁶⁶They 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.⁷⁷Ibid.

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