Portrait of Désiré Pauwels

Person depicted Désiré Pauwels (1861-1942)
Artist Lizzy Ansingh (1875-1959)
Medium Oil on canvas
Year 1932
Role Manrico (Il Trovatore by Verdi)

The opera singer Désiré Pauwels was commemorated in the Stadsschouwburg thirty years after his wife Sophie Pauwels-van Biene, with this portrait by the Amsterdamse Joffer Lizzy Ansingh. She portrayed the singer in his role as Manrico in Verdi's Il Trovatore. The proud, heroic bearing of the troubadour conveys that he will do anything for his beloved mother and his wife, even at the cost of his life. Pauwels sang in the premiere of the opera on Christmas Day 1894 at the newly opened Stadsschouwburg. In 1932 the city council presented the life-size portrait at the theatre to mark the tenor's seventieth birthday.