A Promising Young Man: André Jolles Portrayed by Jan Veth and Jan Toorop

André Jolles, author of Einfache Formen, enjoys some fame in the Netherlands as the close friend of the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga (1872–1945). They became friends in 1896, but their friendship came to an end when Jolles joined the National Socialist Party in Germany in 1933. In the correspondence of Huizinga of about half a century, dozens of letters are written by Jolles. Huizinga’s own letters to Jolles are supposed to be destroyed by the latter. When Jolles was fourteen, he lost his father. His mother, when André was in his early twenties, had him portrayed by two well known Dutch artists: Jan Veth and Jan Toorop. In my essay I present for the first time all the portraits in their context. As is to be concluded from the correspondence between Jolles’ mother and Jan Veth, the main problem was to get André Jolles so far to “sit” for Jan Veth as a model, what he reluctantly did.