MASTER DRAWINGS

from Master Drawings 2024

by Mireille Mosler Ltd.

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Mireille Mosler, Ltd.

Anton Henstenburgh (1695-1781)

Four butterflies and three moths

Signed with initials ‘A: HB. fec=’

Pen, ink, watercolor, and gold on prepared vellum 11 3/8 by 15 5/8 inches (28.9 by 39.8 cm.)

Provenance

Possibly Pieter van den Brande (167(?)-1718), or his son, Johan Pieter van den Brande (1707-1758), by descent to Elbert Carsilius baron van Pallandt (1898-1964), by descent

Their sale, Kunstveilingen Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 26 September 1972, lot 331B, ill.

Otto Naumann Gallery, New York, 1990-2000

Saul Steinberg (1939-2012) & Gayfryd Steinberg, New York

Her sale, Christie’s, New York, 28 January 2022, lot 36

Anton Henstenburgh was the son of Hoorn pastry baker and watercolorist Herman Henstenburgh (1667-1726). Together with his father and the latter’s teacher Johannes Bronckhorst (16481727), Anton was one of an illustrious trio of natural history artists from the wealthy Dutch port town of Hoorn, whose distinctive insect drawings defined the genre in Holland during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

According to his biographer Johan van Gool, Herman excelled at copying prints and watercolors of Pieter Holstein, which were so good that his parents allowed him in 1683 to become a pupil of Johannes Bronkhorst, also a pastry baker and watercolorist. Herman had five children who all married into the elite upper class of Hoorn. Only Anton followed his father’s footsteps and became a watercolorist and pastry chef. In 1709, Herman bought a house for 700 guilders on Hoorn’s main street. The garden housed a big kitchen, in which Henstenburgh created his dishes. In addition to his work as a pastry chef, he also worked as a chef for the wealthy elite, executing meat pies for parties and renting out tablecloths: seemingly the predecessor of a modern-day caterer. On 8 December 1722, Herman’s estate appointed three guardians to his three minor daughters, who were to inherit the tablecloths, while his son Anton were to receive his hobby, consisting of drawings, prints, models, sketches, paints, etc. (‘de liefhebberij bestaande in tekeningen, prenten, modellen, schetsen, verwen etc:’), as well as the house. As per Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, Anton also cleaned and restored paintings in the local Sint Pietershof in 1742.1 Hofstede de Groot classified some of his drawings as Surinamese insects, although it is unlikely Anton visited Surinam.

Anton’s oeuvre was virtually unknown until a group of 135 drawings of birds, butterflies, insects and flowers, including the present Four butterflies and three moths appeared at auction in 1972, as part of the famous van Pallandt sale. This collection, with artists like Maria Sybilla Merian and her daughter Johanna Herolt, was formed by the Middelburg connoisseur Pieter van den Brande (167(?)-1718), and passed down his family, remarkably intact, until sold by Van den Brande’s descendant Baron van Pallandt. The Van den Brande collection included no less than nineteen sheets by Anton, strongly reminiscent of his father’s, but several signed with a similar monogram but clearly composed of the initials AH.2

According to Van Gool, Henstenburgh used pigments of superior quality and his watercolors look more like paintings as a result. First, he would draw contours with pencil and then apply mixed pigments to parchment. His experiments with pigments and transparent layers of egg white and oil paint resulted in watercolors with sophisticated depths. Often commissioned, his drawings entered important collections in the Netherlands and abroad. Around 1650, the first cabinets of curiosity were introduced in the Netherlands with taxidermy birds, prepared butterflies, shells, minerals and fossils. By the end of the seventeenth century, and especially in the early eighteenth century, many collectors commissioned artists to paint their naturalia. These watercolors were kept in portfolios, used to show to visitors. Agnes Block’s country estate Vijverhof aan de Vecht showcased exotic birds and plants as well as prepared butterflies of which she commissioned drawings by different artists, including Merian, Bronckhorst, and Henstenburgh. In 1700, at least three drawings by Henstenburgh were in the collection of Cosimo III de Medici (1642-1723), who had visited the Netherlands twice. The earliest drawing made by Anton at age eleven years old is in Braunschweig’s Kupferstichkabinett, part of a large group of twenty-six drawings by Henstenburgh from the collection of Duchess Elisabeth Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (16831767).3

Anton Henstenburgh

Three butterflies, 1706

Signed & dated ‘Anthoni Henstenburgh. A° 1706. [/] den 8 Februari. elf Jaren out.’

Gouache, gum arabic and pencil on vellum, 239 x 274 cm.

Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig, Z 5385

2 Charles Dumas & Robert-Jan te Rijdt, Kleur en Raffinement, Tekeningen uit de Unicorno collectie, exh.cat., Amsterdam/Dordrecht, 19941995, pp. 90-91, under no. 38

3 http://kk.haum-bs.de/?id=z-05385

Nicolaas Struyk (1686-1769)

Eight butterflies

Bodycolor and watercolor on paper with period black and gold ruled beige card mount

17 5/8 by 11 1/8 inches (44.7 by 28.3 cm)

Watermark Fleur de Lys / Strasburg Bend

Provenance

Randall

Lucien Goldschmidt (1912-1992), New York, 1970s

George and Maida Abrams, Boston

Johnny van Haeften, London, 2000

Peter Tillou, London, 2005

Private collection, United Kingdom

Literature

T.O. Weigel, 1862, catalogue XIII

Hermann August Hagen, Biblioteca Entomologica. Die Litteratur über das ganze Gebiet der Entomologie, bis zum Jahre 1862, Leipzig 1862-1863, Vol. II, p. 394

Little is known about the mathematician Nicolaas Struyk’s childhood and education. 0 He was born on May 21, 1686 in Amsterdam as the second son of the goldsmith Nicolaas Struyk Nicolaaszoon and Geertruy Wesdorp, faithful members of the Lutheran church in Amsterdam. As a little boy he went out with his father catching butterflies. Soon he was in contact with collectors of natural history specimens and assembled himself a modest collection. By 1718, Struyk produced six substantial folios with insect drawings. Later in life he was to write that “formerly insects were my favorite pastime”. Struyk never married and died in Amsterdam in 1769.

At some point, Struyk’s love of natural history turned into a passion for mathematics. In the field of mathematic he remained a collector: instead of chasing butterflies, he collected empirical data, with the aim of discovering lawlike patterns. The curiosities and natural history specimens in Dutch collector’s cabinets of the late seventeenth century were after all perceived as a small-scale reflection of the world. Struyk started his mathematical work around 1712, when he was 26 years old. Like many beginning mathematicians at that time he first performed calculations of solar and lunar eclipses. In his Uytreekening der kanssen in het speelen (Calculation of Chances in Gambling) published in 1716, Struyk displayed his interest in probability calculus. Struyk continued his research into comets to the end of his life. After the publication of his Inleiding (Introduction) in 1740 he carried on tirelessly. The many references to books and papers in foreign journals show that he read profusely and carried on correspondence with colleagues in many countries. However, since his books were published in Dutch, Struyk never received international recognition for his work.

0 Huib J. Zuidervaart, Early quantification of scientific knowledge: Nicolaas Struyck (1686-1769), as a collector of empirical data, p 127

Struyk’s drawings have the same contemporary black and gold ruled beige card mounts, indicating that they all came from the same book or collection, referred to as Seba mounts. Three title pages, bearing Struyk’s signature, dated 1715 and 1719, also support the theory these sheets originated from albums. One of the title pages bears the inscription Verschyden, Uytlansche Insecten, geteekent na het Cabinet van d'Hn. Seba, J. ten Kate, &c., versamelt door N. Struyck, junior, 1719, indicating that these drawings were executed after insects in the cabinet of Albertus Seba and others.

Nicolaas Struyck

Verschuyden Uyt-lansche Insecten, 1719 Bodycolor, grey wash and ink, 447 by 280 mm.

Present whereabouts unknown

Born in East-Frisia, Albertus Seba (1665-1736) moved to Amsterdam, where he opened a pharmacy near the harbor around 1700.0 Seba delivered drugs to the V.O.C. ships departing to the Far East and asked sailors and ship surgeons to bring back exotic plants and animals used for preparing drugs. Seba also started to collect snakes, birds, insects and shells that he bought from or traded with the sailors. From 1711 he provided drugs to the court in Saint Petersburg. After Seba promoted his collection with the head-physician to the tsar, Robert Arskine, Peter the Great bought the complete collection for 15,000 guilders in 1716. Seven months later seventeen trunks arrived in St. Petersburg. With Seba as an intermediary, the famous botanist Frederik Ruysch sold his collection to the tsar as well. A special building was designed, and from 1728 until 1830 both collections were exposed in the Kunstkammer in St. Petersburg.

After the sale of his first cabinet, Seba immediately began forming an even more extensive one. He was able to take advantage of Amsterdam’s preeminent position in overseas trade to collect exotic specimens and had numerous foreign contacts in Ceylon, Virginia, Arabia, Greenland and elsewhere. While the second cabinet is documented in the Thesaurus and some specimens from both cabinets survive in St. Petersburg and Paris, there is no pictorial record of the first cabinet. Possibly Seba commissioned Struyk to draw all the specimens in the collection before shipment took place. His drawings may be the sole survivors of a long lost extensive pictorial record of specimens of Seba’s natural history cabinet. These drawings were most likely included in the six folios with 271 drawings that once were in Struyk’s possession, consisting of insects and butterflies, birds, shells and plants, each carefully mounted.0 The undertaking of such an elaborate project can only have been done for a wealthy patron interested in science and nature. It would have been a long-term commission, begun well in advance of the 1719 date on the title page.

0 Zuidervaart, op.cit., p 127, fn. 10 Cf. Smit et al., Hendrik Engel’s Alphabetical List, no. 1485

0 Hermann August Hagen, Biblioteca Entomologica. Die Litteratur über das ganze Gebiet der Entomologie, bis zum Jahre 1862, Leipzig 18621863, Vol. II, p. 394

Xavier Mellery (1845-1921)

Michaëlskerk (St Michaels church) at Leersum near Utrecht, c. 1889

Black and red chalk on paper

105/8 by 9 inches (27.5 by 23 cm.)

Monogrammed 'XM'

Provenance

Galerie Elstir, Paris, 2018

The painter, draftsman and illustrator Xavier Mellery is the perceived precursor of Belgian Symbolism. During his academic years Mellery committed himself to the study of nature, antiquities and historical composition for which he won the Prix de Rome in 1870. Spellbound by the many fresco’s he encountered in Italy, he aspired to create a peinture d’idées without abandoning realism: this would become his lifelong artistic goal and the basis of his symbolist work. His involvement in the Salon Pour l’Art and Les XX, and contact with Octave Maus and Émile Verhaeren, confirm his contribution to the symbolist movement.

In his intimistic works, starting around 1885, Mellery expresses his search for the deepest meaning of things. The subjects of these drawings are loneliness and silence and often are situated in monasteries or empty corridors, often in the artist’s own home. Living beings and their surroundings blend in and the lack of use of color enhances the intimate character of the scenery. Mellery titled these works Emotions d’Art: L’Âme des Choses (artistic emotions: the soul of things). While Mellery continued to create meditative scenes, the Church at Leersum is an example of his monochrome moody realism. Portraying the inner life of things, the meditative silence, achieved through the use of a limited palette and subdued coloring, Mellery veils the mundane of this house of worship as mysterious and poetic.

Church at Leersum is an example of Mellery’s portrayal of a house of worship in typical monochrome moody realism. In an exaggerated palette, concealing the time of day, Mellery converts the ordinary church to an enigmatic haunt. The open gate summons the visitor into a magical place of devotion, while the general tendency at the time moved towards secularism. Exteriors in villages or the countryside, void of any human presence, reoccur in Mellery’s drawings. Never dated or annotated, it is difficult to establish a chronology or the whereabouts of his frequent travels but the facades depicted certainly have the quality of an architectural portrait.

Nico Jungmann (1872-1935)

A Haarlem Girl, in front of the St Bavo, c. 1898

Monogrammed 'NICO WJ' & titled verso

Watercolor and gouache with blue and black pencil on paper laid down on board

22¼ by 10⅝ inches (56.5 by 27 cm.)

Provenance

Private collection, United Kingdom

Tennants Auctioneer, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom, 14 November 2020, lot 1007

Gallery 19c, Westlake, Texas

Theo van Hoytema (1863-1917)

Pheasants, c. 1900

Signed 'THoytema'

Oil on canvas

30¾ by 17⅜ inches (78 by 44 cm.)

Provenance

Private collection, The Netherlands

Willem van den Berg (1886-1970)

Birds

Signed 'WvdBerg'

Stained glass

SIZES

Provenance

Private collection, The Netherlands

Theo van Hoytema (1863-1917)

Two cocketoos

Monogrammed 'TM'

Pencil on paper

11¾ by 7⅞ inches (30 by 20 cm.)

Theo van Hoytema (1863-1917)

Three young bearded vultures (Lammergieren), c. 1899

Charcoal and colored chalk on paper

12.2 by 19 inches (31 by 48 cm.)

Signed ‘THoytema’

Provenance

Estate sale Theo van Hoytema, Frederik Muller & Cie, 14 November 1917, lot 378 Collection Hartog (Harts) Nijstad (1925-2011), Lochem, The Netherlands

Theo van Hoytema was born in The Hague as the youngest in a family with seven siblings. Orphaned at a young age, Hoytema decided early on his destiny as an artist. By 1890, Hoytema established a studio in a garden house near Castle De Brinckhorst, outside of The Hague. The Dutch tradition of devotion to images of the natural world surely contributed to Hoytema’s early success. Like many other artists, Hoytema was drawn to working in Amsterdam’s famous zoo Artis and almost his entire output — paintings, drawings, graphic work or applied arts — have flora and fauna as a subject. The influence of English illustrators such as Walter Crane and Japanese prints are apparent, as are the Art Nouveau stylized elements prevalent at the turn of the century.

With a focus on graphic works, Hoytema kept his sketches and drawings mounted in portfolios organized by subject spanning a period of three decades. 0 Rarely did he sign or date drawings, making it difficult to establish a chronology. Suffering from a chronic illness and depression, Hoytema’s artistic output continued, although he was hospitalized for much of 1904 and 1905. During his lifetime, in 1900, an auction with over seventy works was organized at Frederik Muller & Cie in Amsterdam, possibly to support the sickly artist. One of the works in this sale was a rare canvas of 1899, Lammergieren, but without a reproduction, it is unclear how the drawing and painting relate.0

When Hoytema died in 1917, as per his wish, the majority of his work entered the collections of the Kunstmuseum in The Hague and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, while over one-hundred drawings were sold at auction, including the present drawing. His favorite subject matter was the animal kingdom, often portrayed as funny characters, appearing on his popular calendars, original artworks and decorative arts, including ceramics and furniture.

0 Marjan Boot, Theo van Hoytema 1863-1917, Zwolle 1999, pp. 97-117

0 Sale Werk van Th. Van Hoytema, Frederik Muller, Amsterdam, lot 66, canvas 164 x 105 cm., present whereabouts unknown.

Theo van Hoytema (1863-1917)

Two cocketoos

Monogrammed 'TM'

Pencil on paper

11¾ by 7⅞ inches (30 by 20 cm.)

Provenance

Private collection, The Netherlands

Especially drawn to birds, Hoytema’s first lithographed booklet Hoe de vogels aan hun koning kwamen was dedicated to his feathered friends. In 1892, it was the first Dutch attempt to integrate text and illustration into one publication. The same year, Hoytema gained great fame with his lithographed illustrations in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Ugly Duckling, followed by several more bird-themed picture books. Hoytema was certainly a versatile artist: that same year, he also produced the exceptional painting Return of the Stork, now in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum.

10

Jacobus van Looy (1855-1930)

Portrait of a Woman

Signed 'Jac v Looy'

Pencil on paper, 55 x 42 cm ovaal. In antieke lijst.

Provenance: N.C.M Puts Hilversum

21⅝ by 16½ inches (55 by 42 cm)

Provenance

Private collection, The Netherlands

Theo

van Hoytema (1863-1917)

Three young bearded vultures (Lammergieren), c. 1899

Charcoal and colored chalk on paper

12.2 by 19 inches (31 by 48 cm)

Signed ‘THoytema’

Provenance

Estate sale Theo van Hoytema, Frederik Muller & Cie, 14 November 1917, lot 378 Collection Hartog (Harts) Nijstad (1925-2011), Lochem, The Netherlands

Note

Theo van Hoytema was born in The Hague as the youngest in a family with seven siblings. Orphaned at a young age, Hoytema decided early on his destiny as an artist. By 1890, Hoytema established a studio in a garden house near Castle De Brinckhorst, outside of The Hague. The Dutch tradition of devotion to images of the natural world surely contributed to Hoytema’s early success. Like many other artists, Hoytema was drawn to working in Amsterdam’s famous zoo Artis, and almost his entire output—paintings, drawings, graphic work or applied arts—have flora and fauna as a subject. The influence of English illustrators such as Walter Crane and Japanese prints are apparent, as are the Art Nouveau stylized elements prevalent at the turn of the century.

Especially drawn to birds, as pointed out by Jan Veth in the introduction to the 1900 sale, Hoytema’s first lithographed booklet Hoe de vogels aan hun koning kwamen was dedicated to his feathered friends. In 1892, it was the first Dutch attempt to integrate text and illustration into one publication. The same year, Hoytema gained great fame with his lithographed illustrations in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Ugly Duckling, followed by several more bird-themed picture books. Hoytema was certainly a versatile artist: that same year, he also produced the exceptional painting Return of the Stork, now in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum.

Theo Nieuwenhuis (1866-1951)

Design for wallpaper with leaves and flowers, c. 1900

Indian ink on paper

16 1/2 by 10 5/8 inches (42 by 27 cm)

Provenance

Private collection, The Netherlands

Theo Nieuwenhuis is the most well-known representative of the Dutch Art Nouveau movement, the Nieuwe Kunst (New Art). He trained at the School for Applied Art and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, where he was a student of the influential Pierre Cuypers (1827-1921), architect of the Rijksmuseum and Amsterdam’s Central Station. After his studies, Niewenhuis traveled extensively through Germany and Austria and stayed in Paris for a period of time until 1890.

Nieuwenhuis drew flora and fauna in an ornate style, and is best known as an interior designer and decorative arts, responsible for the interiors of the Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, ocean liners, and carpets. From 1898 to 1924, Nieuwenhuis worked for the influential art gallery E.J. Wisselingh in Amsterdam, representing Jan Toorop (1858-1928) and other international artists. During this period, Nieuwenhuis was also employed by the innovative electronics company Philips in Eindhoven from 1916-1918.

Around 1900, a new art for a new, improved society, was the goal of many artists. 0 After a century of styles referencing the past, a new form language emerged, based on asymmetry, curved lines and organic decorative motifs. In the Netherlands, this new style aspired to innovate with idealism, while also searching for the authentic. The art world’s urge to innovate around 1900 coincided with major changes in society. For the first time the urban population was growing faster than the rural population. New means of communication fostered internationalisation. The first cautious steps towards wider suffrage prompted the rise of equal rights movements. And industrialisation and growing prosperity made luxury and entertainment accessible to broader swathes of the population. In the art world, particularly among designers and decorative artists, these changes led to counterreactions, including a rediscovery of the value of nature, the countryside and the traditional.

However, there were differences between the Netherlands and neighbouring Belgium and Germany. Abroad, a new expressive form language was designed to appeal above all to an emerging zest for life in a world that was gathering momentum, whereas Art Nouveau in the Netherlands was a quest for authenticity. The re-evaluation of tradition and skill, the reform of art education, appreciation of

0 J. de Bruijn, F. Van Dijke & M. Hohé, exh.cat. Art Nouveau in Nederland, Kunstmuseum, The Hague 2018, pp. 25-33 the perfection and pristine quality of nature, and fascination with exotic, unspoilt cultures; here, the urge for innovation and idealism went hand in hand with a search for authenticity. Due to the fragility of the paper, very few original drawings by Nieuwenhuis survive. The artist’s lithographs show us the variety of designs and coloration produced for the Dutch interior at the turn of the twentieth century.

H.P. Bremmer (1871-1956)

Pears in a bowl (Peren in bakje), 1908

Pastel and pencil on paper

4 3/8 by 9 inches (11 by 23 cm)

Monogrammed & dated ‘HPB. 19 4-8 08’

Provenance

Mr. P.M.C. van den Dries, The Hague

Exhibited

The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, H.P. Bremmer, 18 May - 27 June 1971, cat.no. 21

Bremmer’s paintings and drawings are rare. After his abbreviated attendance at the academy, he decided in 1892 to study independently. His studio practice was solidified in a pointillist style although his artistic output would remain limited to this early period. Familiar with the color theories of Ogden Rood and Michel Chevreuil, Bremmer introduced dots of colors directly following nature rather than scientific schemes.0 Whereas Signac and other French and Belgian contemporaries would use these color theories for plein air landscapes, Bremmer applied this method also for still lifes. A few examples of his work are in the Kröller-Müller and other Dutch museums, and only one, slightly smaller, still life painting is in a public collection in the United States in the Indianapolis Museum of

H.P. Bremmer Fruit still life, 1907

0 J.M. Joosten, "De Leidse tijd van H.P. Bremmer 1871-1895", in: Jaarboekje voor geschiedenis en oudheidkunde van Leiden en omstreken 63 (1971), pp. 79-114

0 Still life with books and Chinese vase, oil on canvas, 55 x 65.4 cm, no. 1992.1 [http://collection.imamuseum.org/artwork/45351]

Kröller-Müller

Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927)

Kelmscott Manor, c. 1905

Pencil and watercolor heightened with bodycolor on Whatman watercolor board

11 by 22 inches (30 by 56 cm)

Provenance

Private collection, United States

Exhibited

London, The New Gallery, Summer Exhibition, 1905

Marie Euphrosyne Spartali Stillman was the youngest daughter of a wealthy Anglo-Greek family and grew up in London where her father, cotton merchant and Greek consul-general Michael Spartali, purchased a stately home at Clapham Common and a country house on the Isle of Wight. The Spartalis socialized with many artists and writers, introducing Marie at a young age to James McNeill Whistler and Algernon Swinburne. Swinburne reportedly said “she is so beautiful that I want to sit down and cry.” In 1864, Whistler introduced Spartali to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), a key member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

As a favorite model and muse to Rossetti and other Pre-Raphaelites, Marie was soon immersed in the art world. As a beau idéal for some of the most notable members of the Pre-Raphaelites, Marie rose in influence owed to her ethereal beauty. As she became interested in painting herself, Rossetti introduced her to Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893). Under his tutelage, Marie trained as an artist and adopted the languid mood typical of the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic.

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879)

Mnemosyne (Marie Spartali), 1868

Albumen print, 29.4 x 23 cm

The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.52

At a time when women were discouraged to pursue careers, Marie doubled down by devoting herself to her art while supporting her family. She regularly exhibited both at the Royal Academy of Arts and at the Grosvenor Gallery in London, a radical alternative to the Academy founded in 1877, and in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester. Her works were also shown at important American venues in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Without her father’s permission, Marie married Rossetti’s friend, the American journalist and photographer William James Stillman (1828-1901) in 1871. Trained by Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church, Stillman chose a career as a war correspondent in Crete and the Balkans. For a time, he was the American consul in Rome, followed by serving his country in Crete during the insurrections. While living in Athens, his first wife worn out by the excitement of life in Crete, committed suicide, possibly another reason why Marie’s father was against this liaison.

The couple lived an itinerant life, spending time in America, Italy and England. Due to their peripatetic existence and William’s unsettled career, Marie was often relied upon to supplement his income through the sales of her art to provide for her family and their six children. Her connection to the Pre-Raphaelites encouraged her to paint vivid and dreamlike landscapes, inspired by the Italian artists before Raphael. Almost a centennial after her death, Marie’s drawing The Enchanted Garden sold for $1.1 million, breaking her own personal record as well as surpassing any other female PreRaphaelite artist.

Marie Spartali Stillman

The Enchanted Garden, 1889

Pencil, watercolor and heightened color on paper

77.9 x 101.2 cm, monogrammed & dated Present whereabout unknown

In 1871, Rossetti and William Morris (1834-1896) took out a joint tenancy on Kelmscott Manor, in the Cotswolds in the south of England. When Morris left for Iceland that summer, his wife Jane and Rossetti, entangled in a romantic liaison, enjoyed the happiest summer there. Morris and Jane drew great inspiration from the unspoiled authenticity of the architecture and its garden at Kelmscott and viewed it as their joint work of art and the ultimate setting of Romantic ideals. Jane Morris (18391914), like Marie, was a muse and model and an artist in her own right and both are important participants in the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood. Marie, like Jane, embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty, perfect for modelling, and in Rossetti’s eyes she resembled a goddess with her tall figure, elegant gestures, long hair and a gaze that was straightforward and dreamy at the same time. Rather than rivals, the two muses were particularly close and Marie often visited Kelmscott after her husband death in 1901. Views of Kelmscott were especially popular in America, where Marie had solo shows in Boston in 1903 and in New York in 1908.

Karen Kilimnik

the witche’s stables, half formed, Hampshire, 2008

Water soluble oil color and acrylic on canvas

18 by 24 inches (45.5 by 61 cm)

Titled & dated verso

Exhibited

Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie International, 57th Edition, 13 October 2018 - 25 March 2019

New York, 303 Gallery, Karen Kilimnik, 1 November – 20 December 2019

Philadelphia born and based Karen Kilimnik conjoins components while constructing her own universe. Whether portraits, still lifes, or landscapes, the artist filters her inner imaginary world through source material procured from museum catalogues and exhibitions. Drawing correspondences between romantic tradition and consumer culture, Kilimnik’s work brings a haunting and contrary sense of beauty to contemporary art. The world of the ballet and childhood, romantic painting and pop music, icons of film and fashion, witchcraft, time-travel, and crime comprise an imagery that has been culled from the fairytale and recent past into an unsettling present. In a world where the forces of nature, youth, and terror have taken awesome hold, Kilimnik’s paintings rematerialize a quest for the romantic sublime.

Often fascinated by life in England, for the witche’s stables Kilimnik transports us to Hampshire, home of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Florence Nightingale. Rather than a castle or grand estate, the artist has chosen a farmhouse and stable, her title insinuating that this is where sorcery takes place. Paired with her predecessor, British-Greek Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927), member of the second generation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, we are enchanted by romantic country life. Like Kilimnik’s painting, Stillman’s watercolor of Kelmscott Manor, draws great inspiration from the unspoiled authenticity of the Cotswold home’s architecture and garden of William Morris and his wife Jane, who would continue her romantic liaison with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, enjoying the happiest chapter of their liaison at the mansion.

Concurrent with Master Drawings, an exhibition of works by Karen Kilimnik and her old master predecessors, The Kingdom of the Renaissance, curated by Mireille Mosler, will take place at Sprüth Magers, 22 East 80th Street, 2nd floor through March 18, 2023.

Joseph Edward Southall (1861-1944)

Contentment, 1928

Watercolor on vellum on linen-covered stretcher

14 1⁄2 by 10 3⁄4 inches (36.7 by 27.5 cm)

Monogrammed & dated ‘ES 1928’

Inscribed ‘PORTRAITS OF BESSIE & TODDIE Joseph Southall 1928’ (verso)

Provenance

Anna Elizabeth (Bessie) Southall-Baker (1859-1947), Birmingham

Her sale, Edwards, Birmingham, 23 March 1948, lot 249

Sotheby’s, London, 19 March 1979, lot 17

The Fine Art Society, London

Alan Fortunoff (1932-2000), New York

The Fine Art Society, London, 2005

Exhibited

London, New English Art Club, Summer Exhibition, 1928, no. 99

Birmingham, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Autumn Exhibition, 1928, no. 143

Paris, Société National des Beaux-Arts, Salon, 1929, no. 1573

London, Leicester Galleries, Joseph Southall, 1931, no. 46

Birmingham, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Joseph Southall, 1933, no. 57

Birmingham, City Museum & Art Gallery, Memorial Exhibition of Works by the late Joseph Southall, 1945, no. 65;

London, Royal Watercolour Society; Bournemouth.

Birmingham, City Musuem & Art Gallery, Joseph Southall, 1861-1944: Artist-Craftsman, 1980, no. E12; London, The Fine Arts Society, 14 October – 7 November 1980.

London, The Fine Art Society, Sixty works by Joseph Southall, 1861-1944 from the Fortunoff Collection, 15 March – 16 April 2005;

Cheltenham, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, 23 April – 4 June 2005.

Literature

‘Up Front’, The Observer Colour Magazine, 18 March 1979, p. 23

George Breeze, Peyton Skipwith & Abbie N. Sprague, Sixty works by Joseph Southall, 1861-1944 from the Fortunoff Collection, Fine Art Society, London, 2005, pp 98-99, no. 23, ill.

Joseph Southall lived and worked in Birmingham at a moment of artistic and cultural excitement, making a substantial contribution to the local Arts and Crafts Movement. Largely devoted to painting, Southall also produced decorative arts in the true spirit of the artist-craftsman. Although there was no formal membership to the Birmingham Group of Artist & Crafts, it was simply unity of conviction encouraged by John Ruskin, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.

A visit to Italy in 1883 persuaded Southall to devote himself to highly-crafted paintings, reviving the use of egg tempera. In 1897, Burne-Jones sent Southall’s self-portrait in tempera, Man with a Sable Brush, to the New Gallery, along with his own work, establishing Southall as one of the foremost artists working in this medium at the time. Participating in exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Society and Modern Paintings in Tempera, a precursor of the Tempera Society, Southall became one of their leading members. When the 1930 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy was devoted to Italian Painting, a renewed interest in tempera painting arose, resulting the following Summer Exhibition with an entire gallery devoted to works in tempera. Although Southall lived mostly in Birmingham, he exhibited internationally throughout his lifetime, at the Galerie George Petit in Paris in 1910.

Both sitters in Contentment are highly familiar to the artist: his beloved missus and kitten.0 Southall and Bessie were first cousins who delayed marriage until well in their forties, in 1903, in order to avert offspring. His wife, Anna Elizabeth (“Bessie”) Baker, was herself a significant craftswoman, assisting Southall in his work and writing on the art of gilding. She appears in many of Southall’s pictures, including his celebrated double portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London. As a childless couple, their feline family member may have played a significant role as Toddie is prominently portrayed.

Joseph Southall

The Agate, 1911

Egg tempera on linen 100.3 x 50.3 cm)

National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 7020

0 Two studies for Contentment were exhibited in the Birmingham show in 1980, op.cit., E12(i) and (ii). The pencil drawing, 27 x 20.1 cm, shows marks that indicate a transfer to the final version. A smaller watercolor, approx. 22 x 15.5 cm was a color study, showing green and rust-red fabric in the background instead of the present yellow and blue.

Jan Toorop (Java 1858-1928 The Hague)

Portrait of Dora Luthy-Arbenz, 1909

Pencil, chalk and pastel on paper

18 by 13½ inches (45.7 by 34.3 mm.

Inscribed, dated & signed ‘Dora Luthy, Arbenz. Jan Toorop 1909 Zurich’

Provenance

Commissioned by Friedrich Alfred Lüthy (1851-1909) & Dora Luthy-Arbenz (1871-1944), Zürich, 1909

Sale Eberhard Habsburg, Zürich

Collection of Dr Hans Lüthy, Egg bei Zürich

Sale, Koller, Zürich, 23 September 2022, lot 3486

Jan Theodoor Toorop was born on 20 December 1858 in Purworejo on the Island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). He was a descendant of a Dutch-Indonesian father and a British mother, but moved to the Netherlands at the age of eleven. In 1880, Toorop enrolled at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. From 1882 to 1886, he lived in Brussels, where he became closely involved with Les XX (Les Vingts), a group of progressive artists centered around James Ensor (1860-1949). After his marriage to the British Annie Hall in 1886, Toorop alternated his time between The Hague, Brussels and England. Beginning in 1890, Toorop also spent time in the Dutch seaside town of Katwijk aan Zee. During this period he developed his own unique Symbolist style, with dynamic, unpredictable lines based on Javanese motifs, highly stylized willowy figures, and curvilinear designs. Toorop died on 3 March 1928 in The Hague.

Little is known about Dora Lüthy, née Arbenz. Her husband, Friedrich Alfred Lüthy, was born in Soluthurn in 1851, the youngest son of merchant Eduard Lüthi. In 1859, Eduard Lüthy bought the seventeenth-century villa Feldbrunnenhof on the Baslerstrasse. Like his two brothers, Friedrich chose the merchant profession and went abroad. At the age of twenty-six, Lüthy became an assistant on a large tobacco plantation of the Swiss firm Näher und Grob in the Sultanate of Serdang on Sumatra, a plantation he would later manage. By the spring of 1890, Lüthy returned to Feldbrunnen with a small fortune (over 16 million Swiss francs in today’s value). At home, he converted the family’s residence into Villa Serdang, named after the sultanate of Sumatra, in 1892 by the established Zürich architects Alfred Chiodera and Theophil Tschudy.

In 1894, Lüthy married Dora Arbenz, daughter of a Zürich bank director. Lüthy was not very involved in his community, often even at odds. Nevertheless, he was a great supporter of today’s natural history museum and social institutions in Solothurn. Lüthy died of an illness on 2 December 1909, which may explain the lack of a pendant portrait, although they could have been separated by inheritance.

Probably because of the tobacco trade in the Dutch East Indies, the Lüthys felt an affinity with Jan Toorop, its most prominent artist in the beginning of the twentieth century. It could also be that they were introduced to Toorop by Nina and Fritz Meyer-Fierz, Zürich collectors who commissioned identical portraits the same year. Although no information is known on Dora Lüthy and her activities as a collector, living in the sizeable Jugendstill villa Serdang certainly would allow for a welcoming home for contemporary commissions. The Lüthy children were eternalized in portraits by the Swiss artist Albert Anker in 1900.0

Toorop (1858-1928)

Portraits of Nina and Fritz Meyer-Fierz, 1909

Pencil, chalk and pastel on paper 460 by 350 mm. (each)

Signed, dated & inscribed ‘Fritz Meijer. 1909/JthToorop/Zürich’ & ‘Nina MeijerFierz.1909/ JthToorop’

The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis Accession nos. 2018.35.1 & 2018.35.2

5 3/4 by 9 3/4 inches (14.7 by 24.8 cm)

Signed ‘JTHToorop’ & inscribed ‘No.3’

Provenance

H. P. Bremmer (1871-1956), The Hague

By descent to a private collection, The Netherlands

Sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 1 December 1998, lot 211

Kunsthandel Studio 2000, Blaricum

Triton Collection Foundation, The Netherlands, 2004

Their sale, Christie’s, Paris, 25 March 2015, lot 22

Exhibited

The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, Têtes Fleuries: 19e en 20e-eeuwse portretkunst uit de Triton Foundation / 19th and 20th Century Portraiture from the Triton Foundation, 2007 Rotterdam, Kunsthal, 15 jaar Marlies Dekkers /15 Years Marlies Dekkers, 2008

Literature

Cornelis Easton, J.E. Heeres & Anton van der Valk, Het boek der Koningin, Amsterdam 1919, p. 8, ill.

Hans Janssen, Têtes Fleuries: 19th and 20th Century Portraiture from the Triton Foundation, The Hague 2007, p. 17, ill.

Sjraar van Heugten, Avant-gardes 1870 to the present: The Collection of the Triton Foundation, Brussels 2012, p. 127, p. 132 ill.

Around 1905, like many artists of his time, Toorop would turn to Catholicism. In 1908 he even moved to Nijmegen, one of the oldest Dutch cities close to the German border and the center of Dutch Catholicism at the time. Toorop developed more certainty in his mysticism while church doctrine allowed him a clear iconography. From 1910 on, Toorop’s health prevented him from long hours behind the easel and he focused on works on paper. Toorop died on 3 March 1928 in The Hague.

The Dream of the Seven Hills was published in 1919 in Het boek der koningin (The book of the Queen), a present to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on the occasion of the end of World War I. 0 Its first owner was H.P. Bremmer (1871-1957), the influential Dutch art critic, who played a major role in introducing contemporary art to a broader audience. He organized art classes where well-to-do ladies were educated in appreciating the art of their time. Many Dutch artists were given advice what to paint and collectors what to acquire. His most prominent pupil was Hélène Kröller-Müller, one of the richest women in the Netherlands at the time. The important collection she built with Bremmer’s advice is now in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo.

The sleeping subject of The Dream of the Seven Hills is the young poetess Miek Janssen (1890-1953), Toorop’s muse and mistress from 1912 until his death in 1928. Possibly the title refers to a dream about the city of Rome, the city built on seven hills and capital of the Catholic faith. A sketch from the same period with eyes piercing over a landscape, adorned with their interlaced monogram OM (for Miek and Olaf, his nickname) suggests a religious connotation: its title Witte Donderdag - Goede Vrijdag (Maundy Thursday - Good Friday) refers to the Holy Week, commemorating Jesus’s Last Supper and the Eucharist.0

Jan Toorop

Witte Donderdag-Goede Vrijdag, signed & dated ‘JThT 1914’ Pencil, 13.5 x 13.5 cm, present location unknown

0 Inscribed

Jan Toorop (1858-1928)

Miek Janssen, Bruges, 1915

Conté crayon and pencil on paper

6¼ by 4¾ inches (16 by 12 cm)

Signed & dated ‘JTToorop 1915’

Provenance

Private collection, The Netherlands

Sale, Zeeuws Veilinghuis, Middelburg, 6 June 2019, lot 449

Like many other symbolist contemporaries, Toorop situated some of his late symbolic religious themes in Bruges, a medieval town in Belgium. The mystic aura of fifteenth century architecture and paintings by the Flemish primitives such as Rogier van der Weyden and Hans Memling appealed to artists at the turn of the century. In 1914, Toorop created the monumental drawing Adoration Bruges (or Divine Love Walk). His muse and mistress, Miek Janssen (1890-1953), whose presence in the symbolist drawing is eternalized in their interlaced monogram OM (for Miek and Olaf, his nickname), described in detail its meaning and dedicated a poem to boot.0 Expressing man’s desire to unite with God, slender figures of divine beings flow past the lofty houses of Bruges, stretching their hands. In their midst rises the young woman in adoration, and they lead her, the longing one, to the Infinite Love.

Bruges is seemingly a second sitter in Toorop’s drawings dated the following year: the present drawing executed in Conté crayon and the colored chalk one in the Kröller-Müller Museum. Rather than a formal portrait depicting a sitter, it seems to be a continuation of the now uncloaked young woman in adoration, the artist’s archetypal muse. Toorop’s daughter, Charley, was the artist’s preferred model, until 1912, when she married and their relationship became fraught. That same year, she was replaced by Miek, his future favorite model. The downward gaze and symmetrical frontality of the sitter are typical for Toorop during this period, as is the reference of the city of Bruges as a backdrop. The arched bridges, inspired by the Begijnhof, are also a well-known motif known from Fernand Khnopff’s 1892 frontispiece for Bruges-la-Mort by Georges Rodenbach.

Jan Toorop

Meisjeskopje, 1915

Colored chalk on paper, 26.5 x 16 cm Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, KM 103.075

Willem van den Berg (1886 – 1970)

The Silver Heron

Signed ‘WILLEM VAN DEN BERG.’

Oil on panel

50 3/8 by 36 5/8 inches (128 by 93 cm)

Provenance

Private Collection, The Netherlands

Willem van den Berg was born on February 16, 1886 in The Hague, where he first trained with his father, Andries van den Berg, a painter, print-maker and art teacher. He later enrolled at the local Academie voor Beeldende Kunst and befriended the artist Willem van Konijnenburg (1868-1943) in 1913. Van den Berg also took study trips to Belgium, Italy and England and worked with the Barbizon artists in France and exhibited at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 1926. In 1935, Van den Berg exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, and continued to paint and exhibit internationally throughout his career. By 1938 he moved to Amsterdam, where he became the director of the National Academy of Fine Arts and remained there until his death on 23 December 1970.

Van den Berg painted still lifes, landscapes and portraits although he is mostly known for renderings of peasants and Dutch fishermen. Although Van den Berg was very much inspired by paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, as a result of his time among the Barbizon painters, a connection to Jean François Millet is also apparent. Like his contemporaries, Van den Berg found inspiration in the nineteenth century Amsterdam zoo Artis, sketching animals to be worked on in the studio in a variety of mediums such as lithographs, woodcuts, drawings or paintings.

Funny creatures captured Van den Berg’s imagination as the many iterations of large feathered birds indicate. The present monumental Silver Heron, another local zoo resident, is positioned by the artist in a sparse, symbolist setting. Replacing the heron’s natural habitat with a decorative scheme of art nouveau ornamentation against a monochrome golden background was inspired by eighteenth century Japanese woodblock screens. Like his predecessor Vincent van Gogh, Van den Berg’s sensibility drastically changed once he encountered these exotic and colorful artworks from the east, leaving traditional representation behind for fashionable Japonisme.