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1900-1905 | Willem Hovy and his Portrait The VU Collection includes this drawing of Willem Hovy. Hovy was the general manager of the beer brewery and vinegar producer De Gekroonde Valk in Amsterdam, which in its day was the biggest brewery in the Netherlands. As a religiously inspired, socially involved and wealthy entrepreneur he played a major role in the founding of VU Amsterdam. This portrait of Hovy draws our attention to the important role of the committed sponsors and benefactors of the university. Who was Hovy, and was he the only donor? Fred van Lieburg considers these questions.
Willem Hovy (1840-1915) was one of initiators of the ‘Vereeniging voor Hooger Onderwijs op Gereformeerden Grondslag’ [Association for Higher Education on Reformed Principles] in 1878 and he became chairman of the board of directors. At the creation of the university two years later, he donated no less than 25,000 guilders and he also donated an annual 250 guilders for each professorship. Hovy was founder and governor of a large number of charity organizations, including in the fields of mission, relief works and prevention of poverty, and he was a member of the Amsterdam city council. He also installed several social policies within his own company, including a pension fund, free Sundays, and extra pay at the birth of a child. He was a deeply religious man, and felt responsible for all those in his care. His contributions to VU Amsterdam suit that image. Even after a conflict around Abraham Kuyper, when Hovy left the board of directors, he kept supporting the university financially. The collection of portraits of leading VU figures was started in 1921, when VU Amsterdam was gifted the portrait of its founder Abraham Kuyper after his death. A portrait of Hovy wasn’t added until 1992. His bust, now situated next to the Aula in the Main Building, arrived even later. The portrait drawing was made by Martha Amalia Voullaire (1856-1932) not long after 1900. Voullaire was a student of Amsterdam-born Jan Pieter Veth, a well-known portrait painter and art critic who also portrayed Kuyper. When Voullaire made this portrait she was the governess of the Hovy family. The soft colours (created with pastel crayons) match
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V U O B J EC T S A N D T H E I R S T O R I E S
Hovy’s pensive attitude and imbue the overall image with a very agreeable presence. The subject’s introspective attitude puts the work in Veth’s tradition, in which the sitters often do not direct their gaze to the viewer. The portrait was donated to VU Amsterdam by the Hovy family in 1992 and it now hangs in the Forum Hall, together with other founders, rectors and directors.
