I can start with the coat of arms of the family
Van der Willige von Schmidt auf Altenstadt
or with the wax seal designed by Jan Eisenloeffel,
but at this moment I prefer a typical Dutch landscape:
the polder in Holland, how it looks like for hundreds of years,
with willows along the waterways, ditches and canals
willows should be cut every second or third year,
the branches can be used to make
baskets, walls, fences, seatings on chairs, etc.
De Wilgen, a 1918 poem by
C.S. Adama van Scheltema on willows ends with:
Toen kwam de boerenkapper aan
Die had een lange schaar
En knipte met een grooten hap
Zoo maar op eenmaal: knip-knip-kap
Door al dat wilgenhaar!
Translated as:
Then the farmer's hairdresser arrived
He had long scissors
And snapped with a big bite
Just like that: cut-cut-snap
Through all that willow hair!
The name Van der Willige refers to WILGEN, dutch for willows.
For the family name other ways of writing are documented as:
Willige, Willigue, Willich, Wilg, Villich and Willigen
And now the wax seal and it's designer.
The designer Jan / Johannes Wigbold Eisenloeffel (1876-1957)
is famous and his work is represented in museum collections,
we have a few objects designed by him,
for example a brooche, brass ware and glasses
The wax seal with coat of arms is made of bronze or brass
with on the top a typical Eisenloeffel enameled geometric decor,
the matrix with the coat of arms of the family
Von Schmidt auf Altenstadt
and/or
Van der Willige von Schmidt auf Altenstadt
The calm of the willows in the dutch polder
makes place for a complex research on the family.
The family line starts with the name
Fabrice / Fabricius
in the 16th Century
with from 1564 the granted nobility for Johann Fabricius
from the estate in Altenstadt, Phalz,
in 1577 3 sons called themselves
Fabricius auf Altenstadt,
one of them, Wolfgang, altered his name into
Von Schmidt auf Altenstadt,
a circa 1750 stone ornament at the castle
Schloss Dallwitz, Priestewitz
with the coat of arms of
Johann Georg von Schmidt auf Altenstadt
and his spouce
Margareta Klara Sichart von Sichartshof:
in 1839 the Dutch nobility was granted,
Johann Pieter / Peter Von Schmidt auf Altenstadt (1812-1880)
added his mother's name
Van der Willige,
and so his branche became:
Van der Willige von Schmidt auf Altenstadt
and there is more:
Time to get back to the calm with a wilgentenen mand
text: Marx Warmerdam
collection: delta 98 den haag
