Elisabeth Johanna Koning
1816–1887 · Dutch still life and flower painter
Elisabeth Johanna Koning (Haarlem, 1816 – Rotterdam, 1887) was a Dutch still life painter, known above all for her flower pictures and botanical drawings. She showed exceptional talent early on: at the age of nine, in 1825, her drawings were exhibited at the National Industrial Exhibition in Haarlem. Sources note that she was born with a right arm that was not fully developed, and that she worked with her left hand. She took lessons from her father and later studied with Henriëtte Ronner-Knip, Maria Geertruida Barbiers and Albert Steenbergen.
At sixteen she was commissioned by the florist Van Eeden to draw the flowers in his greenhouse, and she later received a similar commission from the Amsterdam banker Adriaan Van der Hoop. In 1844 she became an honorary member of the Haarlem drawing society Kunst zij ons doel, and a year later a member of the Royal Academy of Art in Amsterdam. Her flower paintings won prizes and entered public collections during her lifetime.
In 1859 she married the ship captain Sijbrand Stapert and travelled with him to Java, in Indonesia, where she produced many detailed, colourful watercolours of the local flora and fauna. The couple returned to the Netherlands that same year and settled in Groningen. After her marriage she signed her works "EJS geb. K". Her collection of botanical drawings is regarded as her most important legacy, and she is best known under her maiden name.