The work of art ‘The Stocking Girl’ by Pieter Starreveld has been destroyed. Yesterday morning, the bronze statue, which stood on the Hoofdstraat in Emmen, was found on the ground. It is still unclear how and by whom the statue was destroyed.
The statue is a work of art by Pieter Starreveld. It stood in front of the Danlon factory on Kapitein Nemostraat between 1968 and 1998. After more than twenty-five years, the statue returned to Emmen in 2023.
In his work, sculptor Starreveld depicted the hundreds of women who worked in the stocking factory for years. Many of them came from the former Yugoslavia and continued to live in Emmen.
Former Danlon employee Geert de Jong discovered the destruction after he saw photos of it. He went to take a look on Saturday afternoon, but the statue had already been removed by the municipality. “That’s not nice. Fortunately, the statue was not damaged, but the bench she was sitting on was.”
A few years ago, De Jong made it his mission to find the statue. This succeeded after an intensive search in 2023. The statue was in a garden in Vorden, Gelderland. After restoration, the bronze statue was given a place in the town hall, where after six months it was given a permanent place on the Hoofdstraat, opposite the entrance to the Rensenpark.
“I’m not very happy with that place,” he says. “The statue was quite in the dark. When I passed by it in the evening in the dark, I felt for a moment whether it was still stuck.”
De Jong would rather see the statue moved to the other side of the street. “Then you have a real eye-catcher and rascals have no opportunity to do anything with it if the image is in more light,” he says.
The statue is currently away from its pedestal. What will happen to it is unknown. “I am confident that the statue will return. It has to. It is not just a statue; it is a memento of the many people who worked there.
