Just one photo had been thought to survive of the Eurasian writer Dé-Lilah, the pseudonym of Lucy van Renesse-Johnston, until a new picture of her emerged in 2023. Aged nineteen, Lucy Johnston (1862-1906) married Ernest Jean Baptist van Renesse and moved with him to a tobacco plantation in Sumatra. The undertaking was, however, less successful than Ernest and his family had envisaged. The couple and their two children left for Medan, where they opened the Deli Hotel in 1886. Ernest left its day-to-day running to his wife. A resident remembers: ‘Here it was that I first made my acquaintance with Mrs Lucy van Renesse, who held sway here like no-other and could hardly imagine that she would sometime be a minor celebrity as Delila.’ The photo showing Dé-Lilah is from an album that contains a picture of the hotel, and is dated 1878-1886. The owner of the album is unknown, nor is it clear how the album came to be in the possession of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV).
The Deli Hotel in Medan, with the Eurasian writer Dé-Lilah and her husband on the front gallery [KITLV 111161]