Piece of black card with a sample of a white frame made from tape lace that has been used to make 16 panels, each of which is filled with a different form of needle lace and net. Made by G.H.P. Wening betweeen 1919 and 1922 (TRC 2023.2805.094).The TRC recently received a wooden chest inscribed on the lid with the Dutch word Handwerken (‘Handwork’). The chest had long been in the possession of the Van der Kooy family. They recently offered the chest to the Stichting Tesselschade, a foundation set up in 1871 with the basic aim of women supporting other women in various crafts, including textiles and embroidery. https://tesselschade.nl/
However, although the Stichting Tesselschade has a collection of objects itself, they only want items directly related to the foundation and its activities. So Mevr. van den Wijngaart-Carrière, the chair of the Depotcommissie Tesselschade, contacted the TRC to ask if we would like the chest and its contents? After opening the chest, and seeing its contents, we immediately said yes.
Piece of black card with a sample of white canvas totally covered in a checked pattern of alternating dark blue and orange squares. There is a text: "Koninginne, Smyrna of Diamant steek". Made by G.H.P. Wening between 1919-1922 (TRC 2023.2805.069).The chest contained 115 embroidery samples and other textiles, dating to the early 1920s. Most of them are very skillfully worked. Some of the pieces have the signature G. H. P. Wening (very neatly written on the cards with the samples), while a few have the name P. Wening, but in the same hand, so we think it is the same person. But who was she?
Fortunately we had various clues. The name Wening is not a common name here in the Netherlands. Furthermore, she had three initials, and we also had been given the date of c. 1925 by the donors. A search via various online ancestor sites produced a woman called Geertruida Henriette Pauline Wening, the daughter of Hendrik Joannes Wening and Sophia Joanna Amerlia Büge. Was she called Paulien or Pauline (P. Wening) within the family? She was born in Delft on 26 March 1889, and died on 25 March 1978 at the age of 88.
Piece of black card with a sample of white cloth with a cutwork pattern of an oval, waves and pendants, filled with needle lace of various types and patterns. There is a text: "Daspuntje 'point lace' " Worked by G H P Wening between 1919-192 (TRC 2023.2805.100).Another search produced the 1920 annual report of the Technische Hoogeschool, Delft. In the index (p. 61) there is a reference to Ms G H P Wening who was in the first year of the "EL" (Enkele Lessen; 'single lessons') programme at the Hoogeschool in 1919. The programme lasted about three years.
This date is confirmed by two of the samples in the Handwerk chest, which have the dates 14-3-22 (TRC 2023.2805.114) and 26-4-22 (TRC 2023.2805.016). She must have been about 30 when she started the programme.
We are not yet sure exactly what the 'EL' classes included, but it may well have been set up for (female) students wanting to become handwork teachers. Judging from the array of samples, it certainly included a wide range of forms, including knitting, crochet and various embroidery techniques such as canvas work, gold thread embroidery, working initials in various ways (satin stitch, padded satin stitch), and appliqué, cutwork, embroidered and darned net, etc.
Sample with Bargello or Hungarian embroidery, worked by Elizabeth (Betsy) Bachofner. Courtesy Centraal Museum, Utrecht, acc. no. 18444/004.Some of the pieces appear to be early practice pieces, others were both carefully and skillfully worked and then mounted on black card, with details of the technique and the name G H P Wening (and P. Wening). They have the appearance of end-of-year exam pieces, with the stress on understanding techniques and materials in order to obtain a ‘professional’ result.
When looking for comparable pieces we came across a collection of 39 relevant items now in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, that were made by E.C. Bachofner and H.W. Bachofner and that have been dated, in the museum notes, to c. 1905. These pieces include embroidered, knitted and crochet items on black card and labelled in a very similar manner to those worked by Ms Wening, as described above.
The following items were virtually identical: The Utrecht tatting sample 18444/012 is comparable to TRC 2023.2805.009. The Utrecht crochet sample 18444/019 is similar to TRC 2023.2805.071 and the Utrecht reticella lace sample 18444/025 links up with TRC 2023.2805.013.
Piece of black card with a crocheted square divided into four triangles, each with four bobbles. There is the text: "Vierkant G H P Wening" (TRC 2023.2805.071).
Crocheted square of cotton cloth, made by Henriëtte Wilhelmina Bachofner. Courtesy Centraal Museum Utrecht, acc. no. 18444/019.
We suspect E.C. Bachofner was Elizabeth Cornelia (Bets or Betsy) Bachofner, who was born in 1890 in The Hague. She worked as a handwork teacher and married Johan Reinhardt Snoeck Henkemans (1862-1945) when she was 39 and he was 66. She died in Haarlem in 1945, in the same year (the end of WWII !) as her husband.
H.W. Bachofner would have been a sister, Henriëtte Wilhelmina Bachofner, also known as Jet. She was born in 1891 in The Hague and died in Bloemendaal in 1977. She was teaching handwork in Amsterdam.
We think that both sisters attended the same type of classes as Ms Wening. If we are correct then the Bachofner items may date to about 1920 and are also the product of the Technische Hoogeschool, Delft. The two sisters may well have attended the same classes as Ms Wening, and what a significant course it was for passing on knowledge, experience and skills.
Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 1 January 2024
