Brief aan August Allebé Possibly 1908

This is a letter to August Allebé, written by Johannes Hubertus Leonardus de Haas on January 2nd, 1908. It offers condolences and advice concerning Allebé’s illness. Although it is a private correspondence, it is indicative of the kind of institutional and social networks that were in place at the time. The Netherlands at the turn of the century witnessed increasing professionalization in the arts and sciences. Individuals often relied on each other for support and the exchange of ideas. Allebé, like De Haas, was a painter associated with the Hague School, and they would have had many mutual acquaintances. The letter shows how an artist such as De Haas saw the public role of art as enmeshed with private life. He saw his own work in relation to specific individuals and their particular health concerns. To understand this document better, one can draw on biographical information about both men, studies of art academies, and analyses of artistic movements in the Netherlands at the turn of the century. Art, after all, does not exist in a vacuum, but is rooted in the social and institutional contexts of its making.