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Eternal youth'. That is the name of the statue of the stubborn young lady by sculptor Theo van der Nahmer. And eternal youth she has, for ever since her unveiling on 23 May 1973 she has remained young. The title was coined by the commissioner of the statue: housing association 'Verbetering Zij Ons Streven' (V.Z.O.S.). At least, that is what it says in an issue of their residents' magazine from 1973. Van der Nahmer usually named his sculptures himself, but in this case he may have left that honour to the commissioner.

In the young woman, sticking her nose vainly up in the air and holding a fan in her right hand, the staff of V.Z.O.S. saw a 'playful figure', 'not bound to time'. They also thought that the title 'Eternal youth' was symbolic of the location of the lady, a spot on a lawn on the Meppelrade with single-family dwellings in front and senior citizens' homes behind it. [On the border between the part where life is developing and blossoming and the part where the evening of life has come,' says the residents' magazine.

With its fragile forms and jagged bronze edges, 'Eternal Youth' is a typical Van der Nahmer sculpture. He slowly grew into this style. At the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, Bon Ingen Housz (1881-1953) taught him to work in static, austere forms. But the need to work out details and to give his figurative and abstract sculptures a certain airiness became increasingly strong. In his opinion, too much of the design was lost when using clay. In the fifties, he found the solution. From then on, he formed his sculptures in wax and cast them in bronze using the lost wax method. Van der Nahmer has said that he would certainly have stopped sculpting if the lost wax method had not been rediscovered.