Ode to Jeltje de Bosch Kemper | The emancipation of textiles as an art form

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Dear Freule Jeltje de Bosch Kemper,
(may I tutor you for once and address you as 'Jeltje'?),

I imagine it is 1883, and I see you walking from your parental home at Herengracht 573 to the Rijksmuseum. You enter the building from Stadhouderskade and climb some 100 to 150 steps to the upper floors of the museum. Today you don't come here to admire ancient art. No, you come to see how “your” living artists-to-be are doing. For this year, for the first time, three students started their training in art needlework at the National School of Applied Arts at the Rijksmuseum. That these women are being trained in artistic embroidery and lacework - or “art needlework” - is thanks to you.

Very plausible that you actually came to disrupt a class at Art Needlework is not, of course. You are a classy woman and don't just walk down the street without a chaperone, let alone just walk into the school. Your students remember that you usually sent your servant with packets of teaching materials. They often included a bill inviting them to come to your home for tea or to use your library. You are committed to the school and the students, and have a generous heart. 

You also had quite a lot to give, Jeltje. Of course, I don't have to tell you that you were born very wealthy. In 1836 to be exact. At a time when it was not common for girls of your class to study or work. You remain unmarried and live in your parental home. I think that as a young woman you were quite bored from time to time. You yourself write about this that until the age of 35 your life pretty much consisted of “sitting at home embroidering, drawing, playing the piano, doing some sewing, writing letters, making visits, taking some walks, doing some translating, [and reading a lot] from my father's library. In 1871, that changed. You became a board member of the Amsterdam branch of the Algemeene Nederlandsche Vrouwenvereeniging Arbeid Adelt. After a conflict, you and other women founded the Algemeene Nederlandsche Vrouwenvereeniging Tesselschade a year later. At Tesselschade, you began as treasurer and then acted as president for about 25 years. Your involvement with these two associations was the starting point for a life dedicated to the improvement of the position of women. For you, that improvement was mainly in achieving economic independence for “impecunious civilized women. Women had to provide for themselves and Tesselschade and Arbeid Adelt helped women on their way. You were convinced that education and uniting women were the keys to success. That is why you were involved in many initiatives, such as the Vereeniging voor Ziekenverpleeging, the Amsterdam Household School, and thus the establishment of the department of needlework at the Rijksschool voor Kunstnijverheid in the Rijksmuseum.

The establishment of the Art Needlework Department came from the need to improve the level of handicrafts for women and to make women economically independent through the sale of their handicraft products. But you didn't call the program a school of art needlework for nothing - and following the foreign example. Needlework was to emancipate from women's pastimes to art, and thus it was to elevate women as artists and designers. The director of the State School for Applied Arts - Johan de Kruyff - saw much in your plan for a department of needlework and was happy to make space available in his training institute in the Rijksmuseum. The department would be overseen by a “ladies committee” with delegates from Tesselschade and Arbeid Adelt. These associations would also, along with some private money, pay the teacher's salary in the first year and provide teaching aids and furniture. If the school succeeded, the central government would take over the funding. You personally traveled to Vienna to pick up 22-year-old teacher Ida Winkler. From its inception in 1883, Department of Arts and Crafts offered a full three-year vocational course. Students learned to design and execute patterns, master embroidery and lace techniques, restore textile objects, and took classes in art history. They were tested on all this material with theory and practical exams. 

Sixteen years later, in 1899, the needlework class had been integrated into the National School of Arts and Crafts to such an extent that Tesselschade and Arbeid Adelt were no longer needed as supervisors. But then again, you, Jeltje, could not let go of the school entirely. As your friend and later biographer, Johanna Naber, wrote, you left no opportunity unnoticed, “where the former students could submit their work or be charged with restoring old needlework. You turned to city councils, companies, associations and even to “regal persons” to help former pupils get commissions for works of art, banners, covers for charters, or their restoration.

You felt very connected to what was going on on the upper floors of the Rijksmuseum in the last quarter of the 19th century, but your name as 'initiator and 'directoress' has long since ceased to resound through the museum building. The State School of Arts and Crafts moved to Gabriel Metsustraat in 1924 and was renamed the Institute of Arts and Crafts. In the place where “your” women toiled at pattern drawing and art history classes, hordes of museum visitors now stroll the halls. Fortunately, you yourself can be found in the collection. Among other things, we have a portrait of you done by artist Jan Veth in 1896. A few pieces of work from the arts and crafts school have also survived. The collar of bobbin lace by Alida Maria van Schaik (see image) is a fine example. 

Jeltje, you initiated the emancipation of textiles as an art form in the Netherlands, but unfortunately I have to write you that this emancipation is not yet complete in the year 2024. Textiles are still undervalued. Could one reason for this be that textiles are still seen as a “feminine” art form, and therefore a “subordinate” art form?  Fortunately, I can write to you that the image of textiles is slowly changing. At this year's Venice Biennale, a leading event for modern art, an exceptional number of textile artworks were on display. The fact that textile objects can carry stories, act as catalysts for emancipation and at the same time be dazzlingly beautiful, is something we have seen increasingly often in Dutch museums lately. But of course I don't have to explain the power of textiles to you, Jeltje. You know it better than anyone else.

Love from the Rijksmuseum,

Marion Anker

Scientific collaborator Women of the Rijksmuseum

Further reading:

• Johanna Naber, Het leven en werken van Jeltje de Bosch Kemper (Haarlem 1918). 
• Redactie, Kemper, Jeltje de Bosch, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland 
• Marjan Groot, Vrouwen in de vormgeving in Nederland 1880-1940 (Rotterdam 2007/2023).
• J.R. de Kruyff, De Rijksschool voor kunstnijverheid (1885).