Portrait of the Metelerkamp family by Johan Heinrich Neuman, 1851-2

Adapted from the website of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht:

Alexander Hendrik Metelerkamp (1804-1871) was a sub-district court judge. He was promoted in 1829 to a membership in the Council in Utrecht and in the Provincial Council. On June 3, 1830, he married Catharina Gerarda Johanna Verloren (1805-1877) and in 1835 their son Johannes Jacobus (1835-1899) was born. The family lived on the Nieuwegracht in Utrecht, at the current number 56. It was a large mansion from the late eighteenth century with a nineteenth century annex; the lot continued to the street behind it. It was an expensive neighborhood that numbered the houses of many high-ranking and distinguished people. 

I'm charmed by the gaze Mr. Meterlerkamp directs toward his wife; it seems full of love and admiration.

Here Metelerkamp and his wife and son Johannes are portrayed in the garden of their home. Metelerkamp is approaching fifty, his wife, a year younger. Their son Johannes stands between them with a riding crop in hand, the whip indicating the boy's leisure activities, as the book in the left hand of Metelerkamp refers to his learning. His wife, more concerned with domestic matters, has a basket with freshly picked flowers on her folding table next to her.

In the period when the portrait was made, combining all kinds of style elements from the past was very popular. This is reflected in the details of the painting. The rear façade of the house is completely classicist, while the decoration of the ground floor windows is Gothic. The large bird cage on the terrace has a rustic base and looks like a gnarled tree trunk. Metelerkamp sits on a cast iron bench that was made after a design by the famous architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, circa 1825. The garden bench and Madame Metelerkamp's footstool, also made of cast iron, can be called classicist, while her rattan chair is executed in Gothic style. 

Finally, the painting itself is set in a gilded rococo-style frame decorated with floral motifs.

*

Johan Heinrich Neuman (born Johann Heinrich Neuman; 7 January 1819, Cologne - 14 April 1898, The Hague), Dutch painter and lithographer. He was educated at the Koninklijke Academie in Amsterdam and was a student of Louis Henri de Fontenay, Jan Adam Kruseman, and Nicolaas Pieneman. He painted genre scenes and portraits, often using photographs. He also made miniatures on ivory and lithographs.