2017 November | Hodgins Art Auctions

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signed, dated & editioned; inscribed with Julienne Atelier foundry mark

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signed, titled & dated

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signed & dated recto; titled verso

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signed & dated lower right; signed, titled & dated verso

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signed, titled & dated

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signed “Jth Toorop” & dated
Provenance: Estate of Joan Warrior Wiebe Williamson, Edmonton, AB

Johannes Theodorus Toorop was born on the island of Java (Dutch East Indies) in what is now Indonesia. He left as a young man for the Netherlands, where he studied in Delft and at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. From 1882 to 1886 he lived in Brussels where he joined Les XX, a progressive group of artists set up as an alternative to the conservative Academic Salon. Toorop worked in various styles over the years, including Realism, Impressionism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau. Toorop moved fluidly back and forth through various styles and sometimes simultaneously. He was a versatile artist, exhibiting regularly, and also working as an illustrator and graphic designer. In 1905, Toorop converted to Catholicism and his work became more mystic and religious, with religious works featuring more prominently towards the end of his life.

Toorop was an important contemporary of Vincent Van Gogh and Piet Mondrian, and his work is known to have influenced a number of artists, including Gustav Klimt. In 2016, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague presented a large exhibition of Jan Toorop’s work. Toorop first drew “The Stations of the Cross” for the church of St Bernulfus in Oosterbeek (1917-1919). The theme recurs here, as does the imagery of the praying hands which can be seen in other works, such as “The Prayer” (1923 and 1924).

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signed & titled
Provenance: Dominion Gallery, Montreal, QC (label verso)

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signed
Provenance: M.L de Boer, Amsterdam, The Nethelands (remnants of label verso)

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signed “Ad. Schreyer”; titled on a plaque
Provenance: Sotheby’s, New York, May 29, 1980 (lot 181)

Adolf Schreyer was born in Frankfurt, where he received his artistic training at the Stadel School (under Jakob Becker and Johann David Passavant); he expanded his artistic education in Stuttgart, Munich and Paris. He is associated with the German Romanticism movement and the Dusseldorf School of Painting (having studied at the Dusseldorf Academy – now the Staatliche Kunstakademie Dusseldorf – under Wilhelm von Schadow).

As part of his training, Schreyer studied equine anatomy, which helped to foster his confidence and skill in the treatment of this subject matter. Schreyer is particularly esteemed as a painter of horses and peasant life and, further, as a painter of Bedouin scenes, having developed a familiarity with the culture while travelling as a war artist in Northern Africa.

Schreyer’s powerful and dramatic compositions are exemplified by this work, in which the tension of the scene, with the horse team pulling and rearing in response to the menacing wolves, is technically mirrored through vigourous brushwork and the atmospheric tone of the painting.

Adolf Schreyer’s work can be found in many public collections including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Musee de Luxembourg, the Kunsthalle in Hamburg and the Stadel Museum in Frankfurt.