Goosen Bouwmeester (1897-1985) (attributed). Hitler with Mussolini (?)

as ventriloquist's dummy. Oil on canvas, 78 x 86 cm.

Previously stretched on a pin frame, creased. Painting was found rolled up in the attic of a house on the Witte Singel in Leiden. Goosen Egbert Bouwmeester (1897-1985) was a teacher at the Ars Aemula Naturae drawing and painting academy in Leiden, a devoted member of the NSB party and a member of the Landwacht. Bouwmeester would have been forgotten were it not for the fact that writer Jan Wolkers - who enrolled in Ars Aemula in 1944 - based Van Goouw, a fictional character in his novel Kort Amerikaans, on Bouwmeester's persona.