Amsterdamse Joffers

The Amsterdamse Joffers were a group of women artists who met weekly in Amsterdam at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

In 1894, Lizzy Ansingh and Coby Ritsema began their studies at the Rijksacademie in a separate class for female students.

Almost all of them were students of the Rijksakademie and followed classes with August Allebé, Nicolaas van der Waay and Carel Dake.

Ansingh, Ritsema, Robertson, Jacoba Surie and Betsy Westendorp-Osieck were members of artist associations Arti et Amicitiae, kunstvereniging Sint Lucas and Pulchri Studio.

She was influenced by Dutch impressionists such as her brother Jacob Ritsema, George Hendrik Breitner and Fredrik Theodorus Grabijn.

Some of Ritsema's students were Jacoba Surie, Jan van den Hengst, Tine Honey, Victoire Winix and Lize Duyvis.

[4] In the first decade of the 20th century, the members of the circle were regularly present at the annual art exhibits of artist societies in Amsterdam.

[5] Albert Plasschaert, art critic and pen friend of Ansingh, named the group Amsterdamse Joffers in a newspaper article in 1912.

[8] A 1947 book by Johan van Eikeren consolidated the expression Amsterdamse Joffers in Dutch art history.

The French women painters preferred landscape painting of coasts, harbors and countryside with views of the city, together with still life and portrait.