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Jacob Lierens (5 February 1877-30 May 1949) made his mark in pre-war Amsterdam in business and also in appreciation for art. [Fig. 1]. A partner in the company L. Lierens & Co at Prinsengracht 353-355, his business specialized in the trade of waste paper.
Jacob married Henriëtte Johanna Benavente (20 July 1877-10 June 1956) in 1895 and they had four daughters: Elisabeth (16 February 1900-30 May 1930), Rebecca Bosboom (15 January 1902-21 March 1996), Branca Roselaar (8 October 1905-30 September 1942) and Esther Jessurun Cardozo (3 July 1907-28 November 1971).
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The Lierens family took up residence at the Villa Johanna at 196 Amsteldijk, Amsterdam in September 1921 (Fig 2).
Jacob Lierens’ fortune grew with his business during the 1910s and 1920s. His keen eye for art was noted in 1919 in a newspaper reporting auction activity and his purchase, leading to a ‘very exquisite collection’. This collection included old master and Dutch 19th-century genre paintings, as well as Chinese and Dutch porcelain. The artworks which remained in the family’s hands or were recovered just after the war are detailed in the catalogue of Lierens’ estate sale held — again at Frederik Muller et Cie — in 1949. This catalogue shows the taste and breadth of the collection and hints at the former display in the family’s home (Fig 4).
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It was here in 1921 that Lierens acquired two paintings later offered by Christie’s in 2021, a century later: Jan Davidz de Heem’s A banquet still life and Dirck Hals and Dirck van Delen’s A merry company in a palatial interior, with musicians and tric-trac players (Fig 5 and Fig 6).
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The occupation of the Netherlands brought with it stringent anti-Jewish measures with consequent impact on Lierens’ business, collection and family. The Nazi decree VO 48/41, of 12 March 1941, prohibited Jewish people from running a business and shortly after, a German administrator was appointed to Jacob Lierens’ company to ‘Aryanise’ it. Lierens could continue working at his own company for a while but without income, forcing the family into an increasingly precarious situation. Without other sources of income, Lierens was forced to start selling artworks from his collection.
This sale was followed by the Nazi confiscation of the family’s home and belongings in March 1942, forcing a move to a more modest residence. In 1943, Lierens and his wife were imprisoned in the Westerbork transit camp. This camp was the start of a journey for many to concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe. Using jewellery as payment, the couple was fortunate to find a way to escape.
Following their release, Jacob and Henriëtte went into hiding at Prinsengracht 608. In September 1944, official records noted the Lierens couple as ‘V O W’, or ‘Vertrokken onbekend waarheen’ (Departed Unknown Destination). During the war, this same canal was home both to Anne Frank at Prinsengracht 263 and the Einsatzstab Rosenberg Office of the M-Aktion (Möbel-Aktion) at Prinsengracht 796, the German unit which exported Jewish-owned furniture and belongings to Germany.
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The occupation of the Netherlands brought with it stringent anti-Jewish measures with consequent impact on Lierens’ business, collection and family. The Nazi decree VO 48/41, of 12 March 1941, prohibited Jewish people from running a business and shortly after, a German administrator was appointed to Jacob Lierens’ company to ‘Aryanise’ it. Lierens could continue working at his own company for a while but without income, forcing the family into an increasingly precarious situation. Without other sources of income, Lierens was forced to start selling artworks from his collection.
This sale was followed by the Nazi confiscation of the family’s home and belongings in March 1942, forcing a move to a more modest residence. In 1943, Lierens and his wife were imprisoned in the Westerbork transit camp. This camp was the start of a journey for many to concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe. Using jewellery as payment, the couple was fortunate to find a way to escape.
Following their release, Jacob and Henriëtte went into hiding at Prinsengracht 608. In September 1944, official records noted the Lierens couple as ‘V O W’, or ‘Vertrokken onbekend waarheen’ (Departed Unknown Destination). During the war, this same canal was home both to Anne Frank at Prinsengracht 263 and the Einsatzstab Rosenberg Office of the M-Aktion (Möbel-Aktion) at Prinsengracht 796, the German unit which exported Jewish-owned furniture and belongings to Germany.
‘In my charge I had a large number of goods from Mr Lierens, of Jewish descent, and their value in May 1940 represented a very substantial sum. Later Mr Lierens went into hiding and by selling at auction, but not of course in the name of Mr Lierens, I succeeded in providing Mr Lierens with a bearable existence. Afterwards, in a letter he sent me dated 21 May 1945, he expressed his great appreciation and thanks for the spontaneous way in which I helped him during the German occupation.’
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‘I feel a need to tell you in this way of my immense appreciation and gratitude for the spontaneous way in which you helped me during the German occupation by keeping my collection of antiquities safe … Although I had gone into "hiding" I knew what a difficult and dangerous situation you were in repeatedly in connection with the measures taken by the Germans, and I can imagine that it is now a great relief for you that those anxious times are fortunately in the past.’
The Lierens’ survival was in part due to the forced sale of artworks in 1941 through Bernardus Mensing, a partner at the Frederik Muller auction house. The two paintings — A banquet still life by Jan Davidsz de Heem and A merry company in a palatial interior, with musicians and tric-trac players by Dirk Francoisz Hals and Dirck van Delen (Figs 5 and 6) — were sold at Frederik Muller & Cie. in Amsterdam on 14 October 1941. They were acquired by Hans Posse on behalf of Hitler for his planned ‘Führermuseum’ in Linz.
At the end of the war, both paintings were recovered from the Nazi repository in the Alt Aussee sale mine by the Allies’ Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section or ‘Monuments Men’ and returned to the Netherlands (Fig 8a–d).
The paintings were then given by the Dutch authorities as long-term loans to the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem and the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. In 2019, the Restitution Committee in the Netherlands recommended their full restitution to the present-day Lierens family, supported by Mondex's research. Following their auction at Christie’s in 2021, the Hals was acquired by the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. In 2023, the Committee also recommended the restitution of a The Aunts Go on a Journey by Alexander Hugo Bakker Korff from the Rijksmuseum Twenthe.
With the liberation of The Netherlands, Jacob and Henriëtte Lierens re-emerged, restarted their wastepaper business and continued to live in the Prinsengracht until Jacob’s death in 1949 (Fig 10).
Daughter Esther and her family, who had also been in hiding, survived the war, as did daughter Rebecca and family, who had fled to New York in 1939. Henriëtte joined them there after Jacob’s passing in 1949. However, the Lierens’ daughter, Branca Roselaar-Lierens (1905-1942), and her husband, Emanuel Roselaar (1895–1942) perished in Auschwitz.
In loving memory of Jacob Lierens, granddaughter Elisabeth Cardozo (b.1934) explained:
‘Staying in his home was like being in a palace. Thanks to my grandfather, we could go into hiding during the war. We hid in a small apartment belonging to Mrs Rika Verweij who had been the nanny of my mother Esther. We remained in the hiding place from mid-1942 until the end of the war. My grandfather succeeded in hiding some of his valuable possessions. To cover the expenses of the hiding place and provide food for himself and the family, he had to sell many of his valuables. After the war, my parents were penniless. They wanted to leave the Netherlands and to immigrate to Curaçao (Dutch Caribbean). Thanks to my grandfather, we could start a new life over there as he paid for the expenses.’
Reproduced with kind permission of the Lierens family and Mondex
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A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
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