Provenance
Private collection, England
Nicolas Wilhlelm Jungman, also known as Nico Jungmann, was a Dutch painter
of landscapes and figural subjects, a book-illustrator and decorator. He was
born in Amsterdam, where he was apprenticed to a church painter, and studied
at the Rijksakademie. He came to London about 1893 on a scholarship and
became a naturalized British subject, returning to the Netherlands frequently, to
paint in the north Holland town of Volendam. In 1900 Jungmann married
Beatrix Mackay with whom he had three children, Lloyd, Zita and Teresa
(nicknamed “Baby”). As a naturalized Briton, he was interned by German
forces during the First World War, which led eventually to the break-up of his
marriage. Jungman made several painting excursions to Brittany and Holland
with his friend and fellow painter Charles W. Bartlett. He illustrated
topographical books on Holland (1904) and Norway (1905) for which his wife
Beatrix wrote the text, as well as one on Normandy (1905) with a text by
Geraldine Edith Mitton. Jungmann died, aged 63, in London.
After their divorce in 1918, Beatrix remarried to become the second wife of
Richard Guinness from the banking branch of the Guinness family. She stood
godmother in 1931 to the infant Patrick Guinness (1931-1965), son of her
husband’s nephew Thomas “Loel” Guinness and his first wife Hon Joan Yarde-
Buller (later Princess Aly Khan).
Jungmann’s daughters Zita and Teresa became famous as two of the original
“Bright Young People” in the 1920s, and both lived to be 102. Teresa married
Graham Cuthbertson in 1940 and had two children, Penelope and Richard.