The middle portrait of the triptych is of Wilhelmina (van) Kelderman. No portrait of her was ever made. We do know something about her life, thanks to the discovery of boxes full of letters in an English archive. The letters are those looted from Dutch ships by English privateers in the 18th century. Two historians, Dirk Tang and Jean Jacques Vrij, went looking for her life story in all kinds of sources after reading Wilhelmina's letter. This in turn inspired Iris to create her fictional portrait of a black woman with short braids. Often manumitted or freed slaves were given the name of their former owner, sometimes with "van" in front of it.

In the letter, dated March 14, 1795, Wilhelmina wrote to her "master" Engelbertus Keldermann in Amsterdam: "My master, ah take my plea, also answer my plea, do not reject me..." In 1795, she is 61 years old. She is in great trouble and begs Kelderman for support. Kelderman had been a plantation owner in Suriname from 1776 to 1788, including the Portorico plantation. A 1788 inventory states "Willemijntje, cook, old. She is then 54 years old. She has a son Dauphijn, who is a bricklayer. In the letter she writes about a purchase that may not go through. She wants to buy Dauphijn to free him from slavery. It succeeds, but not until seven years later, in 1802. Wilhelmina then buys a slave from a ship that has just arrived to exchange for her son. It is likely that Dauphijn earned the money for his purchase himself. As a craftsman, he worked in Paramaribo for a wage, part of which he had to remit to his owner. So he could save the rest to free himself. And so Willemina was the owner of her own son for some time to come. Indeed, one was truly free only after the "manumission petition" was approved by the authorities. Only in 1804 was Wilhemina's request to grant Dauphijn freedom granted, after another letter in which Wilhelmina wrote to the authorities. She wrote that she hoped "out of maternal" affection to "release her son from slavery and favor him with the treasure of freedom. Someone else wrote that letter for her. She signed with a cross. The manumission itself also required payment.

This family history shows the two ways there were for an enslaved person to gain freedom. Besides manumission, there was another way since 1776. In 1776, the States General in the Netherlands had determined that slaves traveling (with or without an owner) to the Netherlands and staying there for more than 6 months automatically became "vrye luiden. Historians Tang and Vrij have found in the archives that "the negro woman Willemijntje of Mr. E. Kelderman" left by ship for Amsterdam in July 1790. In November 1792 there is mention of the return of "the free Negress Wilhelmina. Free because of a stay in Holland, where slavery was not allowed. With a 21st century view, one might call that hypocritical.

So Wilhelmina is free but, out of habit perhaps, addresses her former owner as "master. She is still dependent on him. The letter is mainly about the cottage in Paramaribo and the allowance she had received from Kelderman. He had even provided a slave woman to help her in the household. She is in danger of losing all that because she spent a long time with a relative of Kelderman's to take care of a baby. In the end, things work out. She is cared for in her old age in a house on Zwartenhovenbrugstraat until she dies in 1836 at the age of 98. Her son had been dead for ten years by then.

Iris Kensmil painted Wilhelmina at a younger age, in the prime of her life. Even before she gained her freedom by staying in the Netherlands and before she could help her son buy his freedom. At a time when she might be wondering how her life would go on. The letter and other sources and the beautiful portrait allow us to reflect for a moment on the (eventually) "free Negress Wilhelmina. But also at what we don't know: what her real name was, who Dauphijn's father was, and what life was like for mother and son on the plantation.

In the Amsterdam Museum's collection is another work also inspired by the possibility of free buying: Manumission Pauline by Ken Doorson.

Starting in 1832, manumissions were registered in Suriname. Until Emancipation (Keti Koti, the breaking of the chains) in 1863 when the total of 6,364 slaves were granted freedom. Ellen Neslo has shown in her dissertation An Unprecedented Elite how during the 19th century in Paramaribo the slavery system was eroded. When slavery was abolished in 1863, 65% of Paramaribo's colored population was already free, thanks to their own efforts.