Mireille Mosler, Ltd.
Front cover cat.no. 2: Anton Henstenburgh (1695-1781) Four butterflies and three moths Signed with initials ‘A: HB. fec=’ Pen, ink, watercolor, and gold on prepared vellum 11⅜ by 15⅝ inches (28.9 by 39.8 cm.)
MASTER DRAWINGS PREVIEW FRIDAY 26 JANUARY FROM 3PM TO 8PM
SATURDAY 27 JANUARY – SATURDAY 3 FEBRUARY 2024 OPENING HOURS DAILY 11AM TO 6PM SUNDAY 28 JANUARY, 1 TO 5PM
Mireille Mosler, Ltd.
EXHIBITING AT JILL NEWHOUSE GALLERY 4 EAST 81ST STREET #1B NEW YORK, NY 10028 +1.917.362.5585 INFO@MIREILLEMOSLER.COM WWW.MIREILLEMOSLER.COM
1 Nicolaas Struyck (1686-1769) Eight butterflies Bodycolor and watercolor on paper with period black and gold ruled beige card mount 17⅝ by 11⅛ 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 Private collection, The Netherlands 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 Struyck’s childhood and education.1 He was born on 21 May 1686 in Amsterdam as the son of the goldsmith Nicolaas Struyck Nicolaaszoon, a faithful member of the Lutheran church. As a little boy he went out with his father catching butterflies. Soon Struyck was in contact with collectors of natural history specimens and assembled a modest collection. By 1718, Struyck had produced six substantial folios with insect drawings. Later in life he was to write that “formerly, insects were my favorite pastime”. Struyck never married and died in Amsterdam in 1769. At some point, Struyck’s love of natural history morphed 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 to discover 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. Struyck started his mathematical work around 1712, when he was 26 years old. Like many beginning mathematicians at the time, he first performed calculations of solar and lunar eclipses. In his Uytreekening der kanssen in het speelen (Calculation of Chances in Games) published in 1716, Struyck displayed his interest in probability calculus. He 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, Struyck never received international recognition. 1 Huib J. Zuidervaart, Early quantification of scientific knowledge: Nicolaas Struyck (1686-1769), as a collector of empirical data, p 127
All Struyck’s drawings have the same contemporary black and gold ruled beige card mounts, so-called Seba mounts. Three title pages with Struyck’s signature, dated 1715 and 1719, also support the idea that 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, suggesting the 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
Around 1700, East-Frisian born Albertus Seba (1665-1736) opened a pharmacy near the Amsterdam harbor.2 Seba delivered drugs to the V.O.C. ships departing to the Far East, asking sailors and ship surgeons to bring back exotic plants and animals used for drug preparation. Seba also started to collect snakes, birds, insects and shells bought from, or traded with, the sailors. From 1711 on, he provided drugs to the Saint Petersburg court. After Seba promoted his curiosa to 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 Saint Petersburg. With Seba as an intermediary, the famous botanist Frederik Ruysch also sold his collection to the tsar. From 1728 until 1830, both collections were exhibited in the tsar’s Kunstkammer in Saint 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 Saint Petersburg and Paris, there is no pictorial record of the first cabinet. Possibly, Seba commissioned Struyck to draw all the specimens before shipping the collection to Russia. Struyck’s drawings may be the sole survivors of a long lost extensive pictorial record of specimens of Seba’s famous natural history cabinet. These drawings were most likely included in the six folios with 271 drawings of insects and butterflies, birds, shells and plants—each carefully mounted—in Struyck’s possession.3. 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.
2 Zuidervaart, op.cit., p 127, fn. 10 Cf. Smit et al., Hendrik Engel’s Alphabetical List, no. 1485
3 Hermann August Hagen, Biblioteca Entomologica. Die Litteratur über das ganze Gebiet der Entomologie, bis zum Jahre 1862, Leipzig
1862-1863, Vol. II, p. 394
2 Anton Henstenburgh (1695-1781) Four butterflies and three moths Signed with initials ‘A: HB. fec=’ Pen, ink, watercolor, and gold on prepared vellum 11⅜ by 15⅝ 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 Bronkhorst (1648-1727), Anton was one of an illustrious trio of natural history artists active in prosperous Hoorn, whose distinctive insect drawings defined the genre in Holland during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A baker by trade and self-taught draftsman by leisure, Bronkhorst had set up shop in 1670 in Hoorn, the northern port city of the Dutch East India Company. Ships docked in Hoorn’s harbor brought countless curiosities from around the globe, including natural history specimens, favored by the local artists. According to his biographer Johan van Gool, Herman Henstenburgh excelled at copying watercolors by Pieter Holstein, which were so good that his parents allowed him in 1683 to study with Bronkhorst. Herman’s five children all married into the elite upper class of Hoorn, but only Anton followed his father’s footsteps as an artist 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 pastries. In addition to his work as a pastry baker, he also worked as a chef for wealthy clients, creating 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.
1 R.K.D.
Excerpts no. 222174
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. Anton’s nineteen sheets included in the sale, reminiscent of his father Herman, were 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, Bronkhorst, 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. An early drawing made by Anton at age eleven 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, 1994-
1995, pp. 90-91, under no. 38 3 http://kk.haum-bs.de/?id=z-05385
3 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 frescos 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 meaning of things. The subjects of these drawings are loneliness and silence and often are situated in monasteries, empty corridors, or 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 shrouds the mundane of this house of worship with mystery. 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.
4 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 Nico Jungmann was born in Amsterdam in a family with no connections to the arts.1 At the early age of twelve, he was apprenticed to a decorative painter, where he was taught to paint murals. After four years of training, his talent was recognized and he enrolled at the local art academy, the Rijksakademie. With a scholarship from Arti & Amicitiae, the young artist moved to London in 1893 planning to send sketches of London life back home. In 1897, the famous Volendam inn keeper Spaander visited a large international tourism exhibition in London, accompanied by his two daughters in village folklore costume and Jungmann, lending weight to its artistic appeal.2 This followed a return to his homeland to work in picturesque Volendam, a place of attraction for the international art scene at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1900, Jungmann married Beatrix Mackay with whom he had three children. Jungmann made several excursions and illustrated travel books. Each travelogue featured illustrations of the locals with their characteristic features and customs. Jungmann traveled extensively to Holland, Brittany, Normandy, Italy, and Belgium. At the outbreak of the First World War, as a naturalized Briton, Jungmann was interned in Berlin in 1916 The art produced while in detention is now in London’s Imperial War Museum. Separated from his wife during the war, the couple divorced in 1918. From his arrival in London, Jungmann successfully showed with the Dowdeswell, the Leicester and Rembrandt Galleries. He made his debut at the Royal Academy in 1897, continuing to show there until 1923. He participated in national and international exhibitions in Munich, Paris, and Brussels. A raving review in The Studio compared Jungmann’s drawings to the Holbeins at Windsor Castle or the etchings of Rembrandt: a promising star.
1 Biographical information from: E.B.S., “Some drawings by Mr. Nico Jungmann”, The Studio 12-14 (February 1898), no.
59, pp. 25-30 2 Brian Dudley Barrett, North Sea Artists’ Colonies, 1880-1920, doctoral thesis, Groningen 2008, p. 217
On his travels, Jungmann would make detailed drawings of the scenery, adding his model carefully afterwards before applying color. With self-made crayons, Jungmann’s drawings approximate Japanese woodcuts, fashionable at the turn of the century. The present large-scale drawing combines his fondness for depicting ‘picturesque Holland’ with his affinity to render ‘beautiful women’. Although in the Dutch cities traditional costume was vanishing at the end of the nineteenth century, Jungmann’s idealization of a frozen life turns a blind eye on modernity. With Haarlem’s imposing St Bavo as a backdrop, Jungmann places his model as a polychrome statuette. The Gothic church provided the ideal environment for the symbolist artist flocking to The Netherlands for inspiration.
Nico Jungmann Portrait of a young woman, head and shoulders wearing traditional dress Pencil and watercolor on paper, 28.2 x 9.5 cm. Present whereabouts unknown
5 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 Hartog (Harts) Nijstad (1925-2011), Lochem, The Netherlands Private collection, 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.1 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.2 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 in his popular calendars, original artworks and on decorative arts, including ceramics and furniture.
1 Marjan Boot, Theo van Hoytema 1863-1917, Zwolle 1999, pp. 97-117
2 Sale Werk van Th. Van Hoytema, Frederik Muller, Amsterdam, lot 66, canvas 164 x 105 cm., present whereabouts unknown.
6 Theo van Hoytema (1863-1917) Gold Pheasants, c. 1900 Signed ‘THoytema’ Oil on canvas in original frame 30¾ by 17⅜ inches (78 by 44 cm.)
Provenance Venduehuis, The Hague, 9 September 2020, lot 638 Private collection, The Netherlands 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 (how the birds got their king) 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 birdthemed 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 van Hoytema Return of the Stork, 1891 Oil on canvas, 30.6 x 17.1 cm. Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Accession no. 1336 (MK)
7 Willem van den Berg (1886 – 1970) Ducks, c. 1930 Signed ‘WvdBerg’ & monogrammed ‘WvdB’ Leaded and stained glass, a pair 12⅝ by 8⅛ inches (32 by 20.5 cm.) (each)
Provenance Private Collection, The Netherlands Willem van den Berg was born on 16 February 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. 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 stained glass windows of ducks—not necessarily zoo residents—are a rare medium in the artist’s artistic output. Difficult to date, perhaps fellow Dutch Art Nouveau artist Johan Thorn Prikker (1868-1932) completed windows for the Romanesque Church of Saint George in Cologne in 1930 were an inspiration. Van den Berg’s graphic eloquence and vibrant smoldering colors with the effect of the lead lines produce a contemporary twist on the medieval window genre.
8 Jacobus van Looy (1855-1930) Portrait of a Woman, c. 1880 Signed ‘Jac v Looy’ Graphite on paper 21⅝ by 16½ inches (55 by 42 cm)
Provenance N.C.M Puts, Hilversum Bubb Kuyper, Haarlem, 30 November 2018, lot 5525 Private collection, The Netherlands Jacobus Van Looy was born on 12 September 1855 in Haarlem as the son of a carpenter. His father lost his job when his eyesight began to fail. His mother died when he was five years old. When his father died soon afterwards, Van Looy ended up in the local orphanage, now the Frans Hals Museum. He trained to become a house painter, but was able to follow drawing classes from 1877 on at the Art Academy in Amsterdam. In 1884, Van Looy received the Prix de Rome, which allowed him to travel. The following two years he spent traveling through Italy, Spain and Morocco. Until 1894 he lived in Amsterdam, when he married Titia van Gelder and moved to Soest. In 1901, the couple traveled to Spain and Morocco. Van Looy moved back to Haarlem in 1913. After his death in 1930, his house at the Haarlemmerhout Park was converted to a museum in his name, although it closed in 1976 and the collection transferred to the Frans Hals Museum. The Rijksacademie, founded in 1870, was a classical art academy and home of the Amsterdam Impressionists. In 1880, August Allebé became its director, who left a mark on the next generation of attending artists. His cosmopolitan attitude veering towards the avant-garde attracted talents such as George Breitner, Jan Toorop, Piet Mondriaan, and Willem Witsen. Witsen and Van Looy became friends at the Academy and were at the center of the Tachtigers or Movement of Eighty, a radical group of writers and artists active around the year 1880. The Eightiers believed that style must match content. Van Looy’s prominence rose as a writer, whereas he used his art predominantly for his personal pleasure: producing portraits of acquaintances and his beloved garden.
Willem Witsen (1860-1923) Portrait of Jacobus van Looy, 1891 Charcoal and crayon, 31.5 x 24 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-T-1976-163
9 Sigisbert Chrétien Bosch Reitz (1860-1938) Morning Glory, c. 1900 Colored chalk on paper 21 5/8 by 7 1/2 inches (55 by 19 cm.) Signed with Japanese Hanko monogram
Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands Sigisbert Chrétien Bosch Reitz, known as Gijs, was born to a wealthy family in Amsterdam. He started his career as a merchant but at the age of twenty-three decided to become an artist instead. After briefly attending the local art academy in the Rijksmuseum, he continued his studies in Munich, finishing his training at the Académie Julian in Paris under Bouguereau. Back in the Netherlands, he settled in Katwijk aan Zee, soon to leave again for Paris to participate in the Exposition Universelle in 1889, followed by an extended stay in England before returning to The Netherlands. Bosch Reitz did not settle down in his hometown, but moved to the region of the Gooi in 1892, first in Eemnes, then Laren. Between each move, he travelled extensively to France, the United States, and Japan in 1900, becoming a world-renowned connoisseur. In 1914 he was invited to curate the Asian collection at the Louvre, but due to the war, he left for New York. In June 1915, he was appointed as the first curator of the newly created Department of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he remained until 1927 when he returned to Amsterdam. Bosch Reitz’s artistic output is relatively small because of his slow process and incredible attention to detail. Even his simplest, decorative works are the result of lengthy, concentrated effort. No longer satisfied with the naturalistic representation of the world around them, Dutch Symbolists such as Bosch Reitz started to express their individualized, often spiritual, experiences around 1890.
Photo of Bosch Reitz in Japan, 1900
Vegetation and floral elements were no longer just part of the decorative vocabulary but became symbolic for themes of life and death in highly stylized forms, against a stark plain background. In contrast to his contemporary Vincent van Gogh, who never traveled to Japan, BoschReitz’s art was not merely inspired by Japonism, the fashionable movement at the end of the nineteenth century, but also reflected a deep knowledge of artists from the Edo period as he was an international Asian art expert. For Morning Glory Bosch Reitz explored the inventiveness of Utagawa Hiroshige, whose woodblock prints are in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, most likely accessioned for the museum by Bosch Reitz.
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) Morning Glories, ca. 1843 Polychrome woodblock print, 32.9 x 11.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Accession no. JP265
10 Bart van der Leck (1876-1958) Parable of the wise and the foolish girls, 1906 Monogrammed & dated ‘BvdL. '6’ Black chalk, colored wax pencil, and white heightening on wove paper in original frame 22 by 44⅞ inches (56 by 114 cm.)
Provenance Private collection, Utrecht Onder de Boompjes, Leiden, 19 June 2023, lot 16 Bart van der Leck was and still is the least known artist of the De Stijl. An aloof man of strong opinions during his long life, Van der Leck kept his distance from the art world and had few close friends. Except for his study years in Amsterdam, he lived outside the main cultural centers. He almost never participated in group exhibitions and had only a handful of solo shows throughout his career. His work was hardly seen abroad as travelling did not appeal to Van der Leck, who rarely left his home and studio. From 1912 on, he was supported by Mrs. Helene Kröller-Müller and her advisor H.P. Bremmer. As a result, the majority of his artistic output is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo. Van der Leck was born in Utrecht in 1876 as the son of an often-unemployed house painter and the fourth of eight children, four of whom died young. Growing up in the slums of Utrecht, he knew poverty all through his childhood. Schooled until the age of fourteen, he apprenticed in a stained-glass windows workshop. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, Utrecht, the seat of the archbishop, was the center of new building activity with stained glass being produced for neo-Gothic windows. This experience proved seminal to the development of his style: he learned to see color as light and to use it plainly and simply with strong contrasts. After eight years of workshop production, Van der Leck succeeded in obtaining a scholarship for Amsterdam’s Art Academy. By 1904, he was a true academician producing symbolist drawings. In 1906, Van der Leck radically changed his style and emerged as an artist working in the style of the Amsterdam Impressionists like Breitner and Isaac Israëls. When De Stijl was founded in 1917, Van der Leck joined as an independent. Like Mondriaan, he was over forty when he finally developed the characteristic style he is known for today. The Parable of the wise and the foolish girls is the last and largest drawing of Van der Leck’s short-lived symbolist period. A procession of five wise virgins—shimmering oil lamps in tow—are on their way to meet the bridegroom in half-medieval half-Egyptian fashion. Rendered in smoothing soft colors, the starry sky signifies the moment of judgement has arrived. Conceived before switching to abstractionism, Van der Leck’s monumental contribution to the Symbolist movement is a new discovery, for which only preliminary drawings in the Kröller Müller Museum were known.1
https://krollermuller.nl/en/bart-van-der-leck-tableau-of-the-virgins & https://krollermuller.nl/en/bart-van-der-leckthe-seven-wise-and-seven-foolish-virgins-with-christ 1
11 Oskar Bergman (1879-1963) Landscape with a Tower, 1907 Signed & dated ‘O.Bergman.1907.’ and numbered ‘410’ Graphite on paper 5⅛ by 7¾ inches (12.9 by 19.7 cm.)
Provenance Private Collection, Sweden Benjamin Peronnet, Paris Oskar Bergman was born in a working class neighborhood in Stockholm. Destined to become an artist, his father’s early death forced Oskar to work at the age of thirteen. Attending evening classes, Bergman never enrolled in the Art Academy and is considered autodidact. Instead, he made several study trips around Europe. Bergman stuck to his naturalist style despite the prevailing abstract and non-figurative trends. Deeply inspired by Japanese woodcuts and symbolism, along with early Renaissance painting, Bergman applied these stylistic ideals to the natural world around him. Seemingly inspired by the realism of photography, his motifs arrive from an enchanted place. Around 1900, Bergman sojourned in Saltsjöbaden, visits offered to him by his loyal patrons Signe Maria and Ernest Thiel. Later, Bergman would visit Thiel on the island Fjärdlång in the Stockholm archipelago, but most influential is Djurgården; home of his memorable childhood summers in nature. Portraying forests and solitary trees, roads and landscapes in different seasons, the Nordic landscape and its mythic mood is encapsulated in these jewellike drawings. By 1904–strongly influenced by Caspar David Friedrich–his artistic career truly began. Revealing the silence of nature in both black and white and colorful depictions, Bergman’s prolific and long career places him among Swedish most established artists. Oskar Bergman Evening at Ljusterö, 1908 Signed & dated, pencil on paper, 24 x 32 cm. Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm, inv.no. TG 27
12 Käthe Franck (1879-1941) Weiβer Ginster (White Gorse) Signed ‘K. Franck.’ Gouache on vellum 19 by 23¾ inches (48 by 60 cm)
Provenance Sale, Bassenge, Berlin, 3 December 2021, lot 6799 Katharina (Käthe) Franck, born in Breslau on 22 October 1879, as the daughter of antiquarian Eugen Franck (1847-1911) and Agnes Berthold. Käthe lived for a while in Dresden, until she moved to Stade, near Hamburg, in 1910 where she studied with Wilhelm Claudius (1854-1942) and exhibited her drawings. In December 1910, she participated in a group exhibition in Hamburg’s Kunstverein, followed by an international exhibition in 1914 in Leipzig with the Deutscher Künstlerbund. She was included in the Munich exhibition in the Glaspalast in 1924. On 4 February 1918, Franck married university professor Ernst Richard Wagner, in Munich. Her conversion to Protestantism did not help: in 1939, identified as a Jew, Käthe was forced to change her name to Sara. Fearful of deportation, she took her own life on 22 September 1939, just shy of her sixtieth’s birthday. The escape from the doomsday scenario of Nazi racial laws made Franck disappear from the art world all together. It was not until 2004 that an exhibition devoted to this forgotten female artist took place in Stade’s City Hall.
Käthe Wagner-Franck, woodblock
13 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, who 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 (18601949). 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 designed 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 with it. 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, the 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.
Jan Toorop (1858-1928) Portraits of Nina and Fritz Meyer-Fierz, 1909 Pencil, chalk and pastel on paper 46 x 35 cm. Signed, dated & inscribed The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis Accession nos. 2018.35.1-2
14 Jan Toorop (Java 1858-1928 The Hague) Portrait of a Girl, c. 1910 Signed ‘J.Th. Toorop’ Pastel, pencil, watercolor on paper 12⅛ by 12 inches (30.7 by 30.5 cm.)
Provenance With François Buffa & Fils., Amsterdam Private collection, The Netherlands For Toorop, European culture became an addition to the foundation he had been exposed to as a child in Indonesia. Like Vincent Van Gogh, Toorop became a socialist sympathizer after observing the people at work in the slag heaps of the Borinage, a horrific landscape more vivid than any hell imagined by the Symbolists. Poetry by Maurice Maeterlinck and Emil Verhaeren became the source of inspiration for Toorop and his contemporaries. From 1882 through 1889, Toorop lived intermittently in Ixelles, near Brussels. Joining the newly formed Lex XX (Les Vingt) in 1884, he was immediately part of the inner circle of the “revolutionaries”: James Ensor and Fernand Khnopff. As the sole Dutch member of Les XX, Toorop forged important relationships between his peers in Belgium and The Netherlands. After meeting the British student Annie Hall (1860-1929) in Brussels, Toorop split his time between The Netherlands, England and Belgium. In April 1890, the couple settled in the Dutch coastal town Katwijk aan Zee, jumpstarting a new artistic endeavor. Notwithstanding an absence from Holland for nearly a decade, Toorop was considered the most important Dutch avant-garde artist at the time, with international connections and aspirations. Soon after returning to the Netherlands, Toorop cofounded the Haagse Kunstkring, where he organized the first retrospective exhibition of Vincent van Gogh, followed by a group show of Les XX in 1892. That same year, Sar Péladan visited The Netherlands, luring Toorop to join his Salon de la Rose+Croix and ushering in his foray into symbolism. Soon, seductive, fatal women, symbols of sensuality and destroyer of man, entered Toorop’s emblematic vocabulary. Embracing his colonial East Indies heritage of tropical vegetation, carvings and Hindu iconography, Toorop began his most important symbolist drawing The Three Brides, now in the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. After its completion in 1893, Toorop returned to portraiture, employing his personal symbolism: the soul is revealed in a fantasy, embodying different types of beings rather than the formality of a portrait.
15 Jan Toorop (1858-1928) The Dream of the Seven Hills (De Droom der Zeven Heuvelen), ca. 1914 Pencil, black chalk and wax crayon 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.1 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.
1 C. Easton, op.cit., p. 8
16 Max Nauta (1896-1957) Armbrug Oudezijds Voorburgwal, Amsterdam, 1920 Signed & dated ‘Max Nauta '20’ Pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper 19½ by 27½ inches (49.4 by 70 cm.)
Provenance Restaurant Dorrius, Amsterdam c. 1930 Private collection, Zandvoort, 1965 Private collection, Costa Rica, 1989 Private collection, Bussum, 1992 Private collection, The Netherlands Born in Deventer on 2 April 1896, Max Nauta spent a large part of his youth in Friesland, before moving to Alkmaar where he attended the Arts and Crafts School, followed by the Amsterdam Art Academy. Enabled by a scholarship from Queen Wilhelmina, he traveled to Cologne, Dresden, Munich, Paris, Chartres, London, and finally Prague. In Czecho-Slovakia, he encountered epic artist Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) and organized the first exhibition of Dutch art in Prague. Nauta’s naturalistic drawings present a tendency to impart a visionary dream; his forms and coloration scheme channel a mystic’s voice. Especially his Amsterdam city scenes testify to the artist’s complete originality of vision. Nauta loved to browse around small streets and narrow canals, almshouses and hidden alleys and corners, docks and old houses which he rendered with a great sense of atmosphere. With a simplification of his use of light-effects and color as demonstrated in his snow-covered street scenes, the greenish-yellow tints of the houses against the glow of the snowpack portray a city in true New Objectivity style, prominent throughout Europe in the 1920s. Max Nauta Ambonplein with the Gerardus Majella church, Amsterdam, 1934 Chalk and watercolor on paper Stadsarchief, Amsterdam, 010062000462
17 Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita (1868–1944) Nude, 1923 Monogrammed & dated ‘Mesquita '23’ Pastel on board laid down on board 28¾ by 24 inches (73 by 61 cm.)
Provenance Sotheby Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 29/30 September 1986, lot 206 Private collection, The Netherlands Venduehuis der Notarissen, The Hague, 30 May 2013, lot 405 Private collection, The Netherlands Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita was born on 6 June 1868 in Amsterdam. His father, a school teacher, died when Sam was five years old. At fourteen, De Mesquita’s ambitiously applied to the Art Academy but was rejected. This setback did not prevent him to devote himself to art, experimenting with various techniques and mediums. De Mesquita was not only a magnificent artist and printmaker, he was also a talented teacher. His most well-known student was M.C. Escher (1898-1972) with whom he developed a lifelong artistic and personal connection. De Mesquita was neither a traveler nor a bohemian, unlike most artists active around the fin de siècle. When his fellow artists moved in large numbers to Paris in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or later to New York, De Mesquita stayed put. Throughout his career he worked from his home at 24 Linnaeuskade in Amsterdam. As a non-religious Sephardic Jew, De Mesquita was not immune from Nazi persecution. His life sadly ended in Auschwitz’s gas chambers, together with his wife, while their only child died in Theresienstadt. With no family to survive, De Mesquita and his artistic contribution had all but vanished and he was largely forgotten until 2005, when the Kunstmuseum in The Hague dedicated an exhibition to his oeuvre. An experimental artist who did not fit within the hierarchy of the Dutch artworld, De Mesquita’s developed Sensitivist works: drawings of strange quasi-human beings, evoking a world of the artist’s own imagination. His drawings come from the unconscious, depicting without artifice imagery emerging from his mind, making him a precursor to the automatism of Surrealism. De Mesquita was a unique artist who simultaneously created images derived from reality as well as scenes drawn from the imagination. He knew how to unite reality and illusion, simplicity and complexity, order and chaos, fact and fiction, rationality and emotion, and the conscious and the unconscious. The present Nude from 1923 with its colorful background is a Sensitivism’s amalgamation of his contemporary Matisse’s color and nude explorations.
18 Stina Forssell (1906-1970) Self portrait, 1927 Monogrammed ‘S.F.’ & signed ‘S Forssell 1927’ Graphite on paper 9¼ by 7 inches (23.5 by 17.7 cm.)
Provenance Private collection, Sweden Nordic Art by Women, Paris Stina Forssell, born in Skelleftea, Sweden, grew up as an only child into a privileged family of doctors in Uddevalla. At school, her artistic talent was discovered early and her parents supported her to study art in Stockholm. She first studied at Edvard Berggren’s painting school in 1924. In the spring of 1927, she entered the art academy, part of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. She was ambitious and talented and received many accolades. In 1928 she received the Academy’s scholarship, a monetary reward, followed by more awards and recognition. In the early 1930s she lived in Paris where she studied at the Maison Watteau under Otte Sköld. Eventually, Forssell acquired a home and studio at Drottninggatan 34 in Stockholm, where many of her work was produced. Uncomfortable showing her art, Forssell did not agree to a single solo exhibition during her lifetime. Little is known about Forssell’s life. She supported herself with commissions for portraits, caricatures and illustrations for books and newspapers. A large number of paintings and drawings show a dark-haired model whose identity is unknown. Recurring motifs are nude studies, half-length portraits and interiors with the model immersed in front of a mirror. Forssell’s artistic production remained in her possession until her death in a car accident in 1970, when some 650 of her works were bequeathed to the Bohuslän Museum in Uddevalla.1 With the majority of her artistic output in one institution and her own refusal to participate in the artworld during her lifetime, Forssell is quite an enigma. Indifferent to the glamor of high society, the present strong self-portrait reveals the artist’s reflective soul rather than beauty or attributes of mundane life in the artist’s studio. The realist idiom of Forssell’s self portrait is representative of The New Objectivity of the 1920s, breaking with modernism’s development towards abstraction. David Almquist (1888-1947) Portrait of Stina Forssell, 1931 Bohusläns museum, inv.no. UMFA54477:1374
1 For all works by Forssell, see: https://digitaltmuseum.se/search/?q=UM71.03.001&aq=
19 Olof Thunman (1879-1944) Norshill Oak, 1930 Signed & dated ‘Olof Thunman/Knivsta 1930’ China ink, pen and grey ink, grey wash on paper 14⅜ by 17⅝ inches (36.6 by 44.8 cm.)
Provenance Private collection, Sweden Benjamin Peronnet Fine Art, Paris Jacob Olof Magnus Thunman, son of a Swedish school teacher, was born in the student residency Imperfektum on Västra Ågatan in Uppsala. After studying in Uppsala, Thunman attended Stockholm’s Academy of Fine Arts from 1902 to 1906, where he was awarded a medal in his final year and met his future wife. As an Academy student, he participated in the inaugural Konstnärslaget (The Artist League) exhibition in 1905. In 1916, Thunman married fellow artist Carin Kuylenstierna (18791968), a mayor’s daughter from Axvall in Västergötland in the Uppland archipelago, where they resided until 1923. They then moved to Skälsjön at Lövstabruk, Österlövsta parish in Uppland and finally to Knivsta, where they lived in the gatehouse at Noor’s castle. Knivsta is now home to the Thunman School, named after him. Thunman was not only active as a visual artist: he described himself “as a bit of a painter, a bit of a poet, a bit of a sage, a bit of a human being”, addressing local motifs. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Scandinavia–like many other European countries–was very much in the grip of nostalgia for the ‘unspoiled’ past. Similar to the artist’s interest in the frozen life in Bruges or Brittany, Scandinavians harked back to their Pagan past through a Protestant perspective. The late rise of Swedish industrialization gave rise to a much-needed national identity based on folktales of the Viking Age.
20 Olof Thunman (1879-1944) Birch by the road, 1932 Signed & dated ‘Olof Thunman 1932’ India ink, pen and grey ink, grey wash, graphite on paper 14⅜ by 17⅝ inches (36.6 by 44.8 cm.)
Provenance Private collection, Sweden Benjamin Peronnet Fine Art, Paris
The lonely tree has been an idiosyncratic vehicle for the international symbolist movement. In particular, the oak tree holds a special place in the Viking culture, symbolizing the warrior’s strength, steadfastness, and courage. Throughout mythology, trees represent powerful gods like Zeus, God of Thunder. In Scandinavia, legends often were attached to individual trees connected to the spirit of the burial mound they were protecting. These spirited trees were to be left in peace and showered with sacrifices to keep their good soul alive.
21 Olof Thunman (1879-1944) Särsta Wärdshus, Knivsta, 1936 Signed & dated ‘Olof Thunman / Knivsta 1936’ China ink, pen and grey ink, grey wash on paper 16 by 19¾ inches (40.5 by 50 cm.)
Provenance Private collection, Sweden Benjamin Peronnet Fine Art, Paris For centuries, the Inn at the Särsta farm, near Noor, the Thunmans residence, has been a landmark for travelers. The current building, with its gable roof, probably dates from the nineteenth century. Since the seventeenth century, Sweden has had a regulated system of stop-and-go inns. A charter from 1878 stipulated that in addition to food, the innkeeper had to provide at least two clean, heated rooms and accommodate one or more horses. In the second half of the nineteenth century, rail traffic totally revolutionized travel in Sweden. The connection between Stockholm and Uppsala opened in 1866, running five to six daily trains in each direction. This influx transformed Knivsta from a farmer's village to a hub for railway traffic. By the mid-1870s, a country store opened at Särsta, as well as a soft drink brewery and a slaughterhouse. Since the Alsike inn was considered too far from the station, the inn in Särsta was opened. After World War I, automobiles began to take over and the centuries-old inn system was completely phased out in 1932, lending its appeal to Thunman to portray travelers’ journey of the past.
22 Willem van den Berg (1886 – 1970) Scheveningen Fisherman, 1932 Signed & dated ‘Willem van den Berg 1932’ Black and brown chalk on buff paper 48½ by 38¾ inches (123.2 by 98.3 cm.)
Provenance Private Collection, The Netherlands Willem van den Berg dedicated his long, successful career to art of the realist tradition, specializing in portraits, animals, landscapes, and depictions of farmers and fishermen. The scenery in Scheveningen at the North Sea was his Brittany: frozen in time, untouched by modernity, these fishing communities with their hardworking modest inhabitants provided ideal inspiration. Rooted in the past by a refusal to don modern dress, the weathered worker is emblematic of a time that had all but vanished. His jagged face underlines the harshness and endurance needed for life upon the sea, the padded jacket protecting the protagonist in medieval garb. Monumental drawings by Willem van den Berg are rare. A later large-scale drawing of Volendam Fisherman is now in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The usual format would be smaller sketches of fisherman made in the port, to be worked in the studio into larger painted compositions. The small portrait of the Scheveningen fisherman—quickly rendered with colored washes—served as the source for a painting with the harbor in the background, now in the collection of Muzee Scheveningen.
Willem van den Berg Volendam Fisherman, 1935 Black chalk Signed & dated 139.7 x 88.6 cm. Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2019.30.2
23 Willem van den Berg (1886 – 1970) Portrait of the artist’s father, 84 years old, 1936 Signed, dated, & inscribed ‘WILLEM VAN DEN BERG-1936-’ ‘A.VANDENBERG.AET.SUAE.84.’ Gouache on paper in original frame 22¼ by 15¾ inches (56.5 by 40 cm.)
Provenance Private Collection, The Netherlands Willem van den Berg’s intimate portrait of his 84-year old father is a homage to his first teacher and mentor, whose own paintings are in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Although Willem van den Berg is such a prolific artist, this portrait, executed in gouache, seems to be the only rendering of his father.
Andries van den Berg (1852-1944) Portrait of Cornelis Theodorus Elout (1767-1841), c. 1883 Signed ‘A. v.d. Berg ft’ Oil on canvas, 135 x 97.5 cm. Rijksmusuem, Amsterdam Object no. SK-A-3793
24 Nola Hatterman (1899-1984) Portrait of a Young Man from Surinam, 1940s Signed ‘NOLA HATTERMAN’ Charcoal on sketchbook page 6⅞ by 5⅛ inches (17.5 by 12.9 cm.)
Provenance Estate Nola Hatterman (1899-1984) Armand Baag (1941-2001), by inheritance Private collection, The Netherlands The flamboyant Nola Hatterman was born in Amsterdam into a privileged white colonial family in 1899.1 Her father worked as an accountant for a company importing goods from the Dutch East Indies. When in the 1930s immigrants from the former colonies entered the society, they became fashionable painter’s models. Nola would never look back: she propagated a black beauty ideal, fought against racism and supported young Surinamese students in Amsterdam. She shared their commitment to independence. In 1953, she emigrated to Suriname. As the director of the School of Fine Arts in Paramaribo, she left her mark on the local art scene. An early feminist, Hatterman started out as an actress: she believed women were equal to men on stage. Between theater rehearsals she exhibited her first drawing with De Onafhankelijken at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1919. Six years later, she abandoned the theater to become a fulltime artist. Hatterman never attended art school; her first teacher was the Italian painter Vittorio Schiavon (1861-1918) who taught her fine Italian watercolor technique. Hatterman was certainly not unique in portraying the colored overseas migrants, but her friendship and commitment to their plight was. Her home at Falckstraat was welcoming to Surinamese tenants. In 1931, Hatterman married Jewish theater director Maup de Vries. Keenly aware of the developments in Germany, Hatterman joined the protest against the curtailment of free art. With her drawings, Hatterman criticized Hitler’s racial doctrine of the Aryan ideal of beauty and gender: white, blond and blue-eyed Aryan race and the mother’s role given to women. When her marriage ended, Hatterman engaged with a communist resistance fighter. During the Second World War, she refused to register with the German-controlled Kultuurkamer and no longer could exhibit. After the war, a new influx of Surinamese men arrived in The Netherlands to study. In postwar art movements, African culture was rediscovered as painter’s exotic object. Nola rejected this exoticism: black people were part of her life. In 1953, she left for Suriname by boat. There, she advocated for the abandonment of the European model, in favor of focusing on developing authentic national art. As a white woman, Hatterman received criticism, shocking her to her core. She moved away from the capital to the heartland of Suriname, where she finished her epic series on slavery and resistance, painting the Surinamese heroes who revolted against colonial enslavement. In 1984, Hatterman was killed in a car accident on her way to a group exhibition in Paramaribo. 1 Biographical information from Dr. Ellen de Vries, The legacy of Nola Hatterman, www.nolahatterman.com
Hatterman’s strong feminist views shaped her response to the subordination of women. In this subjugated position she felt kinship with other oppressed groups: laborers, Jews, new immigrants, and the colonized. After Suriname’s independence in 1975, her position as a foreign Dutch white woman led to friction. Only recently has her role as an important Dutch artist been reclaimed while it remains difficult to reconstruct her entire oeuvre. Working outside of The Netherlands contributed to Hatterman being an overlooked participant of the New Objectivity movement.
Nola Hatterman Prosecuted, 1952 Drawing, 81 x 91 cm. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Object no. A3457
Index
Berg, Willem van den Bergman, Oskar Bosch Reitz, Sigisbert Chrétien Forssell, Stina Franck, Käthe Hatterman, Nola Henstenburgh, Anton Hoytema, Theo van Jungmann, Nico Leck, Bart van der Looy, Jacobus van Mellery, Xavier Mesquita, Samuel Jessurun de Nauta, Max Struyck, Nicolaas Thunman, Olof Toorop, Jan
7, 22-23 11 9 18 12 24 2 5-6 4 10 8 3 17 16 1 19-21 13-15
Mireille Mosler, Ltd. EXHIBITING AT JILL NEWHOUSE GALLERY 4 EAST 81ST STREET #1B NEW YORK INFO@MIREILLEMOSLER.COM WWW.MIREILLEMOSLER.COM +1.917.362.5585
