Caroline Henriette de Jonge (1886–1972)

Caroline Henriette de Jonge, known as Carla, was born in Dordrecht, The Netherlands, to an aristocratic family. Her father died when she was four years old, and in 1894, her mother moved the family to The Hague. In 1904, she went to Leiden University to study Dutch language and literature; art history was not then a recognized major. After graduation, she became an assistant to Willem Vogelsang of the University of Utrecht, the first professor of art history in The Netherlands. With Prof. Vogelsang and Nicolaas Beets, she coauthored the catalog for an exhibition of early northern Dutch painting and sculpture. In 1916, she obtained a doctoral degree with a dissertation on the history of Dutch men's costumes in the first half of the 16th century, illustrated with her own sketches. In 1917, she was appointed deputy clerk at the Utrecht Municipal Archives and assisted in setting up the new Central Museum in a former convent in the historic city center. In 1921, she was appointed curator of the museum, where she spent the rest of her career until her retirement 30 years later, rising to become director in 1941. As a costume and fashion historian, she published scholarly articles and books and expanded the Central Museum's costume collection. She also became a dominant figure in the Dutch art world, choosing and acquiring many paintings for the museum, particularly Utrecht Old Masters. Among them was a famous triptych by Jan van Scorel on which she published scholarly articles in Oud Holland and other periodicals. In 1938, her major work on the painter Paul Moreelse appeared. Her research on Dutch ceramics from 1550 to 1800 -- her second specialty -- yielded books on Delftware (1965) and Dutch tiles (1971). After her retirement, she remained active in the international world of costume history, and participated in a 1952 exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice entitled "La Leggenda del filo d'oro."