Sonneveld HouseSonneveld House

Gispen supplied the majority of the furniture for Sonneveld House. However, the sketches of the interior from October 1932 show numerous items by the German-Austrian furniture manufacturer Thonet. The majority were replaced in 1933 by Gispen models, but this small desk for Mrs Sonneveld is indeed by Thonet.

Above the sofa in the living room hangs a seascape with two botters, a kind of fishing boat, by Willem Bastiaan Tholen (1860-1931). It is a fairly traditional work, certainly compared with the interior in which it hangs.

In the summer of 1927 the Landesgewerbemuseum in Stuttgart held an exhibition of Andries Copier’s work for Glasfabriek Leerdam. Copier installed the exhibition himself. During his trip to Stuttgart he attended the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition Die Wohnung (The Home) in the Weissenhof Estate.

A small portrait of a woman hangs against the side of the bookcase next to Mr Sonneveld’s desk. It is not certain who the painter was. The Sonnevelds’ heirs think it might be by Jozef Israëls (1824-1911), one of the leading painters of the Hague School.

Sonneveld House now contains various examples of Dutch design from the 1920s and 1930s that were not originally in the house. These objects, in particular glass items, have been added because they fit with the style of the house and the family’s taste.

The Sonneveld family took advice on the furnishing of the house from W.H. Gispen (1890-1981). The majority of the furniture in the house was designed and manufactured by Gispen’s company, but not everything. In the early 1930s Gispen’s range was small and mainly focussed on office furniture; he did not introduce garden furniture until 1933. 

The chairs in the studio were chosen from a Gispen catalogue. Like the majority of the furniture and lamps in the house, they were mass-produced and delivered to the door. The family made a selection from Gispen catalogue no. 52, issued in 1933.

From the mid-1920s Andries Copier, head designer at Glasfabriek Leerdam, strove to design a simple, functional carafe and glasses. He succeeded in 1929 with the Wijnbes liqueur set, produced in the newly developed violet-grey glass.  

Gispen supplied no fewer than twenty-two different lamps for Sonneveld House, selected from the Giso lamp catalogue no. 29 (1929): lamps with elementary forms such as cones, cylinders and spheres.

The Sonneveld family’s glass service dates from 1917. It is one of the first that architect K.P.C. de Bazel (1869-1923) designed for Glasfabriek Leerdam.

The carpet which lay in the family’s livingroom was bought at Metz & Co, a store in Amsterdam specialising in modern furniture, fabrics, applied art products, women’s fashion and hats. This carpet was highly popular at the time and remained in demand until well into the 1950s.

All the furniture in the library of Sonneveld House is by Gispen, including these chairs with orange-red peau de peche upholstery. There are two chairs with a higher backrest for men and two with a lower backrest for women, so that their hair or hats would not be flattened. 

The table in the dining room is covered with the Fishes tablecloth, a design by Chris Lebeau (1878-1945) for Linnenfabrieken E.J.F. van Dissel & Zonen. Between 1904 and 1939 Lebeau made more than fifty designs for linen damask, more than any other Dutch designer.

Nearly all the glass in Sonneveld House came from Leerdam. The family probably bought the items at Jungerhans, an expensive and highly respected shop on the Coolsingel that specialised in household goods, cooking utensils, tableware, ceramics and glass.