Marie Bilders-van Bosse

"In the afternoon he [ Johannes Bosboom ] took me to look for it [her first showed painting, ever]. There it was! I thought I was swimming! And next day, our lounge was full of people [at home, with her father], a friend of dad came in and he said: 'I have seen your painting. Very well, indeed. Do you know it just has been sold?' Suddenly it fell silent in the room. Daddy looked at me with surprised eyes. It was my declaration of independence. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"What is life difficult and cumbersome, and what hard work it is to fathom one's own thoughts, feelings really truthfully - to purify and to place them behind each other. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I tell you that I learned from experience. Have you once consulted with yourself – have you once made your decision, don't leave it anymore, otherwise you will become like a weather-cock, and dissatisfied with yourself. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"He [ Johannes Warnardus Bilders ] painted – was living in Utrecht, [he] immediately attracted attention and had many ideas, got good prices for that time; and once he thought 'Is this really beautiful, as people say - but the people are crazy or I am - I came to the conclusion – the people are wrong - picked up my things and went to Oosterbeek' [Autumn of 1841, where he thoroughly started to study nature: branches, stems, plants. Etc..] (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Our trips in Drenthe [in 1878-79] he [ Johannes Warnardus Bilders ] enjoyed a lot, but Vorden and especially Oosterbeek remained the places he loved most. Drenthe was too new for him. The most beautiful painting he made of it were 'the Hunnebeds', a fusain in my possession. He found back again Hobbema everywhere. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"I am glad I have that artistic life in me.. .[I'm] a nobody in my field of art.. .I don't overestimate myself at all, and that's why I can't get that comfort from my work [landscape painting], which the Great [artists] have in their field of art. What else to say! 50 years after my death!! I laughed about it. Do you think they will remember me after only one year? [after her death] Dear heaven! No, that is really my least concern. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Marie is already 4 weeks in Vorden [Summer of 1875], painting under the guidance of the first landscape painter we have here Bilders. I am curious about the fruits of her labor. I must say that she does the work with great zeal, at the cost of her [white] complexion! She will come back as a half Javanese, I think. I am happy for her that she is given a different guidance than she had now from Bosboom [in The Hague], because that became too much modern for me. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"[ Johannes Bosboom was..] the friend of her first art-works, her source of information and on whom she could fall back, the one who helped her to believe in herself and finally the man who seized her with a firm grip from the drift paths of the young ladies' existence, onto the way of the royal art. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"