On the Weteringschans, between Paradiso and the Museumbrug, stands a row of stately villas behind a railing. They are a rarity: according to the monuments register very few villas were ever built inside the Singelgracht. In one of them, the double villa at numbers 20-22 from 1884, the life of one of the most striking women Amsterdam has ever known came to an end in October 1977.
From Tilly of Terneuzen to superpoes
She was born in Terneuzen in 1938 as Mathilda Maria Theodora de Doelder and came to Amsterdam in 1959. She rented a room on the Leidseplein and met the painter Carel Willink, master of magic realism, 38 years her senior. They married in 1969. Willink called her his superpoes, his super pussycat.
Together they were a fixture of the gossip columns: he the dignified old painter, she a walking work of art in the extravagant creations of Amsterdam designer Fong Leng. Willink painted her five times; in the best-known portrait, from 1975, she wears a silver leopard coat by Fong Leng. Her fame, many said, also did his work good.
The break-up
The fairy tale did not last. Willink began a relationship with sculptor Sylvia Quiël, six years younger even than Mathilde. The divorce came in 1977 and that same year Willink married Sylvia. Mathilde stayed on in the villa on the Weteringschans, with a wardrobe full of expensive dresses and, according to those who knew her, less and less money. She sought refuge in nightlife and in circles that were not always safe.
A few months before her death she told a gossip journalist that drastic action would be needed if her finances carried on like this. What did she mean? "Well, suicide."
25 October 1977
In the late afternoon of 25 October 1977 Mathilde Willink was found dead in her four-poster bed, with a bullet in her head and a small pistol beside her. She was 39. The police quickly concluded she had taken her own life and the file was closed. Friends, and people within the police as well, openly doubted it. Who held the gun has never been conclusively established.
She was buried at Westgaarde cemetery. Carel Willink died on 19 October 1983, six years and six days after her.
Little of her remains in the city. The villa on the Weteringschans still stands, with its railing, its lion heads and its view of the water, and the Amsterdam Museum keeps some of her Fong Leng coats and capes.
More about this area? Read about the Paradiso plot, a few doors away.
- 01Mathilde was 38 years younger than Carel Willink. He called her his superpoes.
- 02Her first Amsterdam room, on the Leidseplein, cost fifty guilders a month.
- 03Carel Willink died in 1983, six years and six days after Mathilde.
- 04According to the monuments register, her villa is a rare example of villa building inside the Singelgracht.
- 05The Amsterdam Museum keeps Fong Leng coats and capes worn by Mathilde.
Sources (8)
- Lisette de Zoete, Mathilde: muze, mythe, mysterie (Lecturis), leesfragment
- Corrie Verkerk, Amsterdamse spookhuizen (De Kring, 2017), leesfragment
- Rijksmonumentenregister: Weteringschans 20-22 (518477)
- VARAgids: Podcast van de week, Mathilde's Mysterie (2021)
- IDFA: Mathilde Willink superpoes (2002)
- Museum MORE: Portret van Mathilde (1975)
- Amsterdam Museum: Vrouwen van Amsterdam
- Peter-Paul de Baar en Peter de Brock, Hier gebeurde het (boekentip)
