Image: Jakob Smits, 'Meisjesportret' (Portrait of a Girl), c. 1898. Collection Jakob Smitsmuseum, Mol.
The Jakob Smitsmuseum in Mol has put a recently restored portrait of Marguerite, the daughter of the painter Jakob Smits, at the centre of its summer exhibition THIS IS SMITS, which has been running since 21 June and closes on Sunday 30 August 2026. Painted around 1898, the picture is strikingly large for a family portrait.
Titled ‘Meisjesportret’ (Girl’s Portrait), it shows Marguerite with a pouting lip and a look the museum calls “branie” – bravado, or cheek – as she meets the viewer’s eye. Loose brushstrokes, strong light-dark contrasts and subtle colour shifts give the figure its force, and the museum reads the painting as evidence both of Smits’s admiration for Rembrandt and of his own artistic boldness.
The recent restoration is the reason for the feature. According to the museum the colours shine again as never before: the blue of the dress sparkles once more and Marguerite’s headstrong gaze has come fully back to life.
Time is short. THIS IS SMITS, which the museum describes as a return to the essentials, bringing together highlights of the collection with recent acquisitions, ends on Sunday 30 August. The museum, at Sluis 155a in Mol, is open Wednesday to Sunday from 1 to 5 pm. On that closing Sunday, between 1 and 5 pm, people living in the Stuifzand region can visit free of charge, as they can on the last Sunday of every month.
After the summer the museum turns to ‘Gemaakt om geschilderd te worden: Kunstenaarskolonies in de Kempen 1840-1920’, from 19 September 2026 to 17 January 2027, a two-venue exhibition staged with the Emile Van Dorenmuseum in Genk on the artists’ colonies that formed in the Kempen from the 1840s.
