<SPAN lang=EN>Dutch female painter Thérèse Schwartze painted this depiction of Nicolaas Beets dressed in an academic gown. The image represents Beets as a wise and knowledgeable man. Beets was a staunch defender of abolition, strongly informed by Christianity. He orated multiple speeches on the abolishment of slavery and was a fundraiser for the National Freedman’s Relief Association, an organization that served the interests of former enslaved people in the USA and for which Sojourner Truth worked.</SPAN>
Dutch female painter Thérèse Schwartze painted this depiction of Nicolaas Beets dressed in an academic gown. The image represents Beets as a wise and knowledgeable man. Beets was a staunch defender of abolition, strongly informed by Christianity. He orated multiple speeches on the abolishment of slavery and was a fundraiser for the National Freedman’s Relief Association, an organization that served the interests of former enslaved people in the USA and for which Sojourner Truth worked.
Nicolaas Beets (Haarlem 1814-Utrecht 1903) was letterkundige en theoloog. Hij studeerde theologie in Leiden. In 1839 publiceerde hij onder de schuilnaam Hildebrand de Camera Obscura. In 1854 werd hij predikant in Utrecht. Hij woonde Boothstraat 6. Van 1874 tot 1884 was hij hoogleraar kerkgeschiedenis en ethiek aan de Utrechtse universiteit. In 1877 werd hij rector-magnificus van de universiteit. Beets was een man van het midden, hij behoorde tot de gematigd-orthodoxe 'ethische richting' in de Hervormde Kerk (zie: F. Vogelzang, ´Nicolaas Beets´, in: Utrechtse Biografieën, deel 2, pp 34-40).
Documentation
Beitel en palet : 150 jaar Genootschap Kunstliefde, (Utrecht, 1957), cat. nr. 138
Catalogus van de Nicolaas Beets herdenkingstentoonstelling, (Utrecht, 1953), cat. nr. 42 [z.p.]
Catalogus van het Historisch Museum der stad, supplement, cat. nr. 137 7x
