Portrait of a young Blacksmit by Jan Toorop
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Portrait of a young Blacksmit 1884

Jan Toorop

WoodBoardOil paintCardboardPaint
70 ⨯ 42 cm
ConditionExcellent
Currently unavailable via Gallerease

  • About the artwork
    Oil on cardboard laid down on board
    70 x 42 cm.
    Signed and dated: upper right ‘J.Th. Toorop 84’

    Provenance: Collection Van Lieshout; Ivo Bouwman, The Hague; Auct. Venduehuis, 21 november 2018, lot no. 306; Private collection, The Netherlands.

    Exhibited: The Hague, Kunstzaal Kleykamp, February 1919, cat. no. 38, collection Dros; The Hague, Pulchri Studio, ‘Eere-tentoonstelling Jan Toorop’, 4-26 April 1928, no. 7, coll. Dros; The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, 22 februari – 14 maart 1937, ‘Vroege werken van Jan Toorop’, cat. no. 26.

    Literature: Dr. P. Buschmann Jr, ‘Onze Kunst, voortzetting van de Vlaamse School’, january 1911, ill. p. 17, as: ‘De Smidsjongen’; Amsterdam, 1909, cat. 51; Plasschaert, ‘Jan Toorop’, Amsterdam 1925, p. 32, no. 6; J. de Boer, Jan Toorop, 1927, no. p. 2; R. Siebelhoff, the early development of Jan Toorop, Univerity of Toronto, vol II, p8408; 1947 J. Knipping, ‘Jan Toorop’, Palet Serie, Amsterdam, p. 6.
  • About the artist

    Jan (Johann Theodorus) Toorop was born on the isle of Java, Poerworedjo, in the year 1858. In 1869 his family moved to The Netherlands, where they believed Toorop could obtain better education. After a childhood of poor concentration and poor grades, Toorop applied to the Academy of Arts in Amsterdam, focussing mostly on sculpture and applied arts.

    In 1882 Toorop left for the city of Bruxelles, where he gained popularity as a member of the group Les Vingt, a group of twenty artists who would exhibit their work twice a year in February and March.

    Jan Toorop, together with Van Gogh and Mondriaan, belongs to the group of most important Dutch artists from the period around 1900. These major artists had their focus on new, international developments in art and inspired other artists themselves. Toorop can be seen as a great source of inspiration of Gustave Klimt.

    Toorop's work knows an immense popularity and is often associated with Art Nouveau, mainly because of one well-known advertisement for a certain kind of salad oil. However, Toorop's oeuvre should not be seen as Art Nouveau only. He was known as a neo-impressionist and symbolist as well, switching between styles of working and combining them in response to his environment.