Lee Man Fong (1913 - 1988) A young boy with horses oil on board, 39,5x90 cm

Indonesia has maintained a long-standing connection with The Hague, the Netherlands’ administrative and government center, since being a Dutch colony called the Dutch East Indies. During that period, a number of Indonesian painters, such as Raden Saleh (1811-1880), went to the Netherlands on scholarships to refine their skills while being commissioned to create portraits of prominent Dutch individuals.

These paintings and other visual crafts will be showcased at this year’s upcoming Indonesian Art Sale, which will be conducted by Dutch auction house Venduehuis in The Hague on Sept. 12.

Established in 1811, Venduehuis is, and has always been, owned by the Association of Notaries Public in The Hague.

Venduehuis Indonesian art ambassador and advisor Frans Leidelmeijer and its deputy director, Chris Vellinga, are organizing this year’s Indonesian Art Sale after being encouraged by the success of last year’s debut auction on Sept. 20. The upcoming auction seeks to attract Indonesian art collectors, who can attend the event at the auction house or engage in long-distance participation from Indonesia by phone or through live streaming.

Leading online international art market resource artnet.com listed it on its list of five key auctions to watch for in September last year, alongside other prominent ones such as the South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art at Christie’s New York, quite a feat for an auction debut.

Furthermore, important paintings on sale at last year’s auction were highly valued, with Affandi’s piece Boar going under the hammer for 128,000 euros (US$147,989.76). Paintings by Indonesia’s Lee Man Fong (1913-1988) also did well at last year’s auction.

“For decades Indonesian art collectors were interested in finding these items. Nowadays, we see a younger generation also starting to collect Indonesian paintings,” Leidelmeijer told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview in Jakarta.

This year’s upcoming exhibition will highlight two paintings: Rudolf Bonnet’s 1975 Ni Nyoman dengan Banten and Lee Man Fong’s A young boy with horses (undated).

Dutch painter Bonnet (1895-1978) visited Bali in 1929, which was around the time when European artists of that period discovered that the island was a haven for painters thanks to its vibrant beauty. Later in his career, Bonnet was successful in becoming one of the most influential European artists of his time, playing an important role in the planning and construction of the Puri Lukisan (Painting Palace) Balinese Art Museum in Ubud.

Isaac Israels (1865 - 1934) A Javanese dancer watercolour on paper, 51 x 41 cm

Bonnet’s Ni Nyoman dengan Banten, in particular, has a special story behind it. The painting was purchased directly from the artist by Dutch art collector Paulien Gobée who, as a young girl, attended the same school as Indonesia’s first president Sukarno in Surabaya, East Java. Gobée’s father was the mathematics teacher at the school. Dutch newspaper Het Vrije Volk reported in its Dec. 4, 1965, edition that Sukarno had a crush on the Dutch girl.

“My first crush was Paulien Gobée, the daughter of one of my teachers. She was beautiful and I was crazy about her,” Sukarno was quoted by the Dutch newspaper as saying. The love, unfortunately, went unreciprocated. Gobée grew up to be an art collector and Sukarno finally crossed paths again with his old flame when he exhibited his personal painting collection at his house.

During the exhibition, to Gobée’s surprise, she saw several of her paintings being displayed in Sukarno’s house. These paintings disappeared from Gobée’s Indonesian house during World War II when she stayed in the Netherlands. It was not clear how the paintings ended up in Sukarno’s house, but the charismatic then-president eventually convinced her that he had taken good care of the paintings, so she would let him keep them. Gobée, however was not discouraged to start a new collection. Bonnet’s Ni Nyoman dengan Banten was part of this new collection.

The works of Chinese-Indonesian painter Fong, meanwhile, are clearly inspired by Chinese symbolism and also by the traditional brush ink scroll paintings. Fong, however, gave a modernist tone to his subtle paintings. The animals in his paintings represent various virtues.

The horse is one of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac; 2014 was the latest year of the horse (the cycle recurs every 12 years). The animal symbolizes honesty and frankness; while people born in a horse year are said to have a very sociable personality.

Trubus Soedarsono (1924 - 1966) A Balinese Legong dancer oil on canvas mounted on board, 140 x 78 cm

Another painting with an interesting ownership history is Sumadidjaja Harijadi’s (1921-1997) Portrait of a young Javanese woman (undated), which was purchased by Dutch collector Klaas Jan Bas. Besides being an art connoisseur, Bas was also a bookseller: He launched bookshops that sold scientific and general books for Indonesians.

To promote literacy among poor Indonesians, Bas contacted the then-president director of the Indonesian Railway Company to launch a mobile train library, which operated from 1951 to 1954. The train library stopped at local stations and stayed there for one or two weeks on unused railway tracks so people could read books in the Indonesian language.

In a nutshell, at the upcoming auction, collectors can time travel to discover a fascinating petite histoire between Indonesia and the Netherlands otherwise unknown to the general public. Furthermore, they will also discover that the two countries are bound not only by the legacy of colonialism, but also by the arts.