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Home , Jan Toorop, Katwijk aan Zee

Jan Toorop ( 1858-1928 )

Portrait of Dr. Claes Noorduijn, 1911

Pencil, charcoal and white heightening on buff paper 21 1/4 by 16 3/4 inches (53.9 by 42.6 cm.) Signed, dated & inscribed: 'aan mejufrouw Noorduijn/portret van haren vader Dr. C. Noorduijn door J.Th.Toorop./Nijmegen 1911'

Provenance Mrs. J.R. Noorduijn, Nijmegen, by descent Private collection, The

Exhibited Nijmegen, Gebouw der R.K. Militairen Vereeniging, Tentoonstelling van werken van gehouden te Nijmegen ter gelegenheid van de opening der R.K. Universiteit, 15 October – 3 November 1923, no. 18 Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Tentoonstelling van werken van Jan Toorop, 17 November – 9 December 1923, no. 20 , Gebouw voor Beeldende Kunst, Toorop, 1924, no. 39 The Hague, Pulchi Studio, Eere-Tentoonstelling Jan Toorop, 4 - 26 April 1928, no. 102 Nijmegen, De Waag, Wat Toorop aan Nijmegen naliet. Tentoonstelling van werken in Nijmeegsch bezit en te Nijmegen ontstaan, 18 June -1 July 1928, no. 10 Nijmegen, Museum Commanderie van St. Jan, Jan Toorop. De Nijmeegse jaren 1908-1916, 1978 Nijmegen, Museum Het Valkenhof, Jan Toorop. Portrettist, 13 September – 23 November 2003

Literature M.J. Schretlen, “Toorop”, Opgang 4 (1924), pp. 26-37, p. 28 (ill.) A. Plasschaert, Jan Toorop, Amsterdam 1925, p. 50, no. 2, fig. 28 Peter Thoben, “Toorops contacten en zijn “opgang” in het katholieke milieu”, in: Jan Toorop. De Nijmeegse jaren 1908-1916, 1978, pp. 34-35 J.T.Th. Noorduijn, “Kwartierstraat Dr. Claas Noorduijn”, in: L.W.M. Berenbroek, P.M. op den Brouw & N.A. Hamers, Zoeklicht op Nijmegen. Genealogische Heraldische Bundel, Nijmegen 1980, p. 53 (ill.) Afstemmen op afstammen. Genealogische tentoonstelling, Gemeentearchief Nijmegen 1980, p. 137 (ill.) Peter van der Coelen, Jan Toorop. Portrettist, 2003, pp. 100-101, no. 27

Note Jan Theodoor Toorop was born on December 20th, 1858 in Purworejo on the Island of Java in the (now ). He was a descendant of a Dutch-Indonesian father and a British mother. In 1869, he left Indonesia for the Netherlands, where he studied polytechnic and art in Delft and Amsterdam. In 1880, Toorop became a student at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. From 1882 to 1886, he lived in , where he became closely involved with the radical exhibition circle Les XX (Les Vingts), a group of artists centered around (1860-1949). Talented and adventurous, Toorop embraced stylistic trends with alacrity. By the early 1890s he had experimented with and , and had begun addressing innocence, evil, death, and the afterlife in mysterious allegorical works characterized by intricately patterned forms and swirling lines that recall the art of his native land. After his marriage to the British Annie Hall in 1886, Toorop alternated his time between The Hague, Brussels and England. After 1890, Toorop also spent time in the Dutch seaside town of aan Zee. Toorop died on March 3rd, 1928 in The Hague.

As a draughtsman, Jan Toorop was extremely accomplished, both in his use of a range of materials and also in the effects he was able to achieve with them. Toorop produced designs for posters, book illustrations and covers, and postage stamps. He also made around fifty prints, mainly drypoints, for which he perferred to use zinc plates instead of the harder copper plates, which meant that only a few impressions of each print could be made. Toorop was also a superb portraitist, and produced a large number of drawn and painted portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, as well as many portraits – usually in the form of highly finished drawings - of some of the leading Dutch writers, poets, clergymen, politicians, lawyers, musicians, composers and intellectuals of his day. Toorop may justifiably be claimed as one of the finest Dutch portraitists of the early 20th century.

After converting to Catholicism, Toorop briefly moved to Nijmegen in 1908, one of the oldest Dutch cities close to the German border and the center of Dutch Catholicism at the time. Here he 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 his focus became works on paper. The present sitter, doctor Claas Noorduijn (1823-1916), played an important role in the community of Nijmegen. As an obstetrician and surgeon, Noorduijn was one of the founders of the Protestant Hospital, now the Wilhelmina Hospital, of which he was the first director. Son of a doctor, Noorduijn was known as uncomplicated and altruistic: treating the poor in his practice. Noorduijn’s portrait certainly is not an indication of his vanity as it was his daughter who commissioned the portrait from Toorop.