The parents-in-law

In London, where Bilderdijk ended up after his exile, he experienced hospitality at the home of the Dutch Schweickhardt family. Father Hendrik Willem Schweickhardt (1746-1797), a painter, had moved from The Hague to London about eight years earlier with his wife Magdalena Josina van Olst (1742-1829) and their seven children. In The Hague, Schweickhardt had been director of the Pictura drawing academy, of which Bilderdijk was an active member. In May 1796, the poet wrote to his wife about the renewed acquaintance and sent her a portrait painted by Schweickhardt (with a verse) as a ‘breast ornament’.

These oil portraits are both by Schweickhardt. He painted them in 1794, a year before Bilderdijk arrived in England. When it turned out that, as a married man, he was dating their eldest daughter, Katharina Wilhelmina, the hospitality he enjoyed from her parents came to an end. In September 1796, they denied him access to their house.