Skip to content

Jonge, Carla, Jkvr., de

    Full Name: Jonge, Carla, Jkvr., de

    Other Names:

    • Jkvr. Carla de Jonge

    Gender: female

    Date Born: 1886

    Date Died: 1972

    Place Born: Dordrecht, Gemeente, South Holland, Netherlands

    Home Country/ies: Netherlands


    Overview

    Director Centraal Museum Utrecht (1941-1951). De Jonge was born to a noble family. She was the daughter of Willem Adriaan de Jonge and Wilhelmina Naletta van Rappard. Her father died in her early youth. De Jonge attended high school at The Hague, where she had been living since 1894. Between 1904 and 1912, she studied Dutch language and literature at Leiden University. After her graduation she decided to specialize in art history under Willem Vogelsang at Utrecht University, where she became Vogelsang’s assistant in 1913. In the same year she was actively involved in the preparation of the Utrecht exhibition on early Dutch painting and sculpture. With Vogelsang and Nicolaas Beets, she coauthored the accompanying catalog, Tentoonstelling van Noord-Nederlansche schilder- en beeldhouwkunst voor 1575. In 1916 she obtained her doctoral degree with a dissertation on the history of the Dutch men’s costume in the first half of the sixteenth century. In 1917 De Jonge was appointed adjunct-commies tweede klasse at the Utrecht Municipal Archives under Samuel Muller Fz (1848-1922), who also was, until 1919, the director of the municipal museum collections in Utrecht. Muller was responsible for the setting up of the new Central Museum in the former Utrecht Agnieten monastery. De Jonge’s 1917 appointment was related with this project. In 1918 she, in addition, became an active member of the Rijkscommissie voor de Monumentenzorg and was charged with the description of monuments in the North-East of the province of Noord-Brabant. De Jonge obtained the position of curator of the Central Museum, under director Willem Schuylenburg, in 1920. Muller, however, kept the responsibility for the arrangement of the display of the objects in the building. Following the opening of the museum, in 1921, the general display of the objects was sharply criticized. Schuylenburg and De Jonge then rearranged the galleries and began to describe the collections. In 1928 the comprehensive catalog of the historical department appeared, Catalogus van het Historisch Museum der stad, Centraal Museum Utrecht, followed, in 1933, by the critical catalog of paintings, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Catalogus der Schilderijen. De Jonge had a special predilection for the Utrecht Old Masters. Between 1921 and 1938 no less than 27 paintings were added to the collection, including the famous Lochorst triptych of Jan van Scorel, on which De Jonge published a number of articles in Oud Holland and other periodicals. In 1938 her major study and oeuvre catalog on the Utrecht painter Paulus Moreelse appeared. De Jonge also broadened the costume collection, which became the subject of several publications, as a follow up to her dissertation. Before the outbreak of World War II, part of the museum collection was stored in several hiding-places. The museum soon reopened after having been closed during the German invasion, with a reduced display. In 1941, following Schuylenburg’s retirement, De Jonge was appointed director of the museum. In 1944 she was forced to mount an exhibition of modern art conforming to the ideology of the German occupation authorities. Later that year De Jonge took the initiative to evacuate a further part of the collection. The museum then remained closed for more than a year. After the war, De Jonge set up an active exhibition program. In 1951 she retired and moved to The Hague; she was succeeded by Elisabeth Houtzager (1907-2001). In 1952 De Jonge’s revision of the 1933 Catalogus der Schilderijen appeared. In the same year she was actively involved in the exhibition La leggenda del filo d’oro, organized by the Centro Internazionale delle Arti e del Costume in Venice. In the field of decorative arts, she published on Delft ceramics (1965) and Dutch tiles (1971). She died in 1972. De Jonge played an important role in the organization of the new Centraal Museum in Utrecht. The significance of her scholarly contribution to the documentation of the artworks in several critical catalogs is still recognized. Another important aspect of her directorship is her care for the objects during the war. The forced 1944 pro-German exhibition was never judged in post-war years an an act of collaboration.


    Selected Bibliography

    [complete bibliography:] Roodenburg, Marie-Cornélie. Jonkvrouwe dr. C. H. De Jonge, kunsthistorica (1886-1972), haar werk, haar leven. Mensen van vroeger 5/1 (1977): 11-15, and Marcus-de Groot, Yvette. Kunsthistorische vrouwen van weleer. Hilversum: Verloren, 2003, pp. 417-421; [dissertation:] Bijdrage tot de kennis van de Noord-Nederlandse costuumgeschiedenis in de eerste helft van de zestiende eeuw. 1. Het mannencostuum. University of Utrecht, 1916; and Vogelsang, W. and Beets, N. Tentoonstelling van Noord-Nederlansche schilder- en beeldhouwkunst voor 1575, Gebouw voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen Mariaplaats Utrecht 1913. Utrecht: s.n., 1913; and Weve, J. J., Ter Kuile, E. H., Ozinga, M. D., Haslinghuis, E. J. De provincie Noord-Brabant volume 10 of Voorloopige lijst der Nederlandsche monumenten van geschiedenis en kunst. The Hague: Algemeene landsdrukkerij, 1931; Nederlandsche beeldhouwkunst in de zeventiende eeuw. in, Van Gelder, H. E. And Duverger, J., eds, Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden. Utrecht: De Haan, 1936, pp. 350-361; Paulus Moreelse, portret- en genreschilder te Utrecht 1571-1638. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1938; Delfts aardewerk. Rotterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 1965, English, Delft Ceramics. New York: Praeger, 1970; Nederlandse tegels. Amsterdam: De Bussy, 1971, English, Dutch Tiles. New York: Praeger, 1971.


    Sources

    Roodenburg, Marie-Cornélie. Jonkvrouwe dr. C. H. De Jonge, kunsthistorica (1886-1972), haar werk, haar leven Mensen van vroeger 5/1 (1977): 1-24; Knol, Meta. omen en daden. Schuylenburg en de Jonge verzamelen onder voorbehoud, 1921-1951. in Bosma, M., ed., De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, 6, Beeldende kunst 1850-2001. Utrecht: Centraal Museum, 2001, pp. 14-141; Marcus-de Groot, Yvette. Kunsthistorische vrouwen van weleer. De eerste generatie in Nederland voor 1921. Hilversum: Verloren, 2003, pp. 275-297.




    Citation

    "Jonge, Carla, Jkvr., de." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/jongec/.


    More Resources

    Search for materials by & about this art historian: