Jan Toorop
Javanese-born Dutch Symbolist of linear, wraith-like figures, who later turned to Catholic subjects.
Jan Toorop was born in Java in 1858 to a Dutch colonial official and a mother of mixed descent, and was sent to the Netherlands at eleven. He worked through Impressionism and Pointillism before arriving in the 1890s at the Symbolist manner that made him: elongated, wraith-like female figures with streaming hair drawn in a linear rhythm that draws directly on the Javanese wayang shadow puppets of his childhood. He designed the famous Delftsche Slaolie poster, converted to Catholicism in 1905, and spent his later career on religious subjects and portraits. He died in 1928.
A market principally in the Netherlands and Belgium. The Symbolist works of roughly 1890 to 1900 lead by a considerable margin over both the earlier and the later output. Most of the significant work is on paper in chalk, pencil and mixed media, so light damage, foxing and mount-burn are the main condition determinants. The lithographic posters are collected in their own right and turn on impression quality and whether a sheet has been folded or backed. His daughter Charley Toorop was also a significant painter, and the two are sometimes confused.
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