View source for Sina Mesdag-van Houten

{{Short description|Dutch painter (1834-1909)}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Sina Mesdag-van Houten
| honorific_suffix =
| image = Sientje Mesdag-van Houten.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption = Sientje van Houten (c.1905)
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1834|12|23|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Groningen
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1909|3|20|1834|12|23|df=yes}}
| death_place = The Hague
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| nationality = Dutch
| education =
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| known_for = painting
| notable_works =
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| movement =
| spouse = Hendrik Willem Mesdag
| awards = Order of Oranje-Nassau <!-- {{awd|award|year|title|role|name}} (optional) -->
| elected =
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'''Sina (Sientje) van Houten''' (23 December 1834 [[Groningen (city)|Groningen]] – 20 March 1909 [[The Hague]]) was the wife of [[Hendrik Willem Mesdag]], the Dutch marine painter of the [[Hague School]], and a painter herself.
==Biography==
She was the eldest of seven children of Derk van Houten and Barbara Elisabeth Meihuizen. One of her brothers was later Minister [[Samuel van Houten]]. Her father had a large sawmill on the Damsterdiep. She married Mesdag on 23 April 1856.
Sientje was a strong moral support to her husband, especially when she enthusiastically supported him in 1866, when he gave up his business profession solely for painting.
She began to paint in 1871, after she lost her only child, the 8-year-old Klaas. Gerkens Arnaud helped her drawing, while her painting was aided by her husband and her cousin [[Lawrence Alma-Tadema]]. She specialized in landscapes and still lifes, but also painted portraits.
In 1874, together with [[Gerardina Jacoba van de Sande Bakhuyzen]], [[Kate Bisschop-Swift]] and [[Margaretha Roosenboom]], she painted "Hague orphans", a painting for the then Queen Sophie on the occasion of the 25-years royal jubilee of her husband, King Willem III.
In 1881 she took part in painting the [[Panorama Mesdag]]. As she worked, her husband painted her portrait, working on the panorama, and in the panorama itself she is portrayed sitting behind her easel.
[[File:Van Houten-Sheepfold.jpg|thumb|Sheepfold on the Heath]]
In 1884, one of her landscapes won a gold medal in Amsterdam she received a bronze medal in Paris for a heath landscape. In Melbourne, her work also received a bronze medal. She exhibited her work at the [[Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago)|Palace of Fine Arts]] at the 1893 [[World's Columbian Exposition]] in Chicago, Illinois.<ref name="Nichols">{{cite web |last1=Nichols |first1=K. L. |title=Women's Art at the World's Columbian Fair & Exposition, Chicago 1893| url=http://arcadiasystems.org/academia/cassatt12.html#mesdagS|accessdate=31 July 2018}}</ref> When Sientje Mesdag was 70 years, in 1905, she had an honorary exhibition in the halls of the [[Pulchri Studio]].
Her work has been exhibited in numerous countries, including Australia, Belgium, England, France, Italy, Austria and the US.
On 21 December 1904 she was named Officer in the [[Order of Oranje-Nassau]]. In 1906 the Mesdag-Van Houten couple celebrated their golden anniversary.
She died in the Hague, on 20 March 1909. She is buried in the [[Oud Eik en Duinen]] cemetery. He husband was also buried there in 1915. In 1930 her brother Samuel was laid in the same grave.
Work by Van Houten is found in the collections of the [[Gemeentemuseum Den Haag]], [[Panorama Mesdag]], the [[Rijksmuseum]] Amsterdam, the Groningen Museum, the [[Drents Museum]] in Assen, the [[Fraeylemaborg]] in Slochteren, the {{ill|Museum Lambert van Meerten|nl}} in Delft and [[the Mesdag Collection]].
[[File:De schilderes Sientje Mesdag-van Houten in haar atelier, gefotografeerd door Sigmund Löw in 1903.jpg|thumb|Portrait of the Dutch painter Sina Mesdag-van Houten in 1903]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
*Gerharda Hermina Marius, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, "The Hague School: Sequel", [[s:Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century/The Hague School: Sequel|''Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century'']], 1908
* Clara Erskine Clement Waters, "Supplement" [[s:Women in the Fine Arts/Supplement|''Women in the Fine Arts'']], 1904
==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{commons category-inline|Sina Mesdag-van Houten}}
* [https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/record?query=Mesdag&start=10 biographical notes on Sientje Mesdag van Houten, in Dutch RKD-Archive, The Hague]
* [https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search?q=Sientje&v=&s=&ii=0&p=1 free pictures of her paintings and drawings: on the website, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam]
{{ACArt}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mesdag-van Houten, Sina}}
[[Category:1834 births]]
[[Category:1909 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century Dutch painters]]
[[Category:Dutch women painters]]
[[Category:Hague School]]
[[Category:Painters from Groningen]]