Lot 56: A still life with roses in a glass vase

Charley Toorop (DUTCH, 1891-1955)
A still life with roses in a glass vase
signed and dated 'C Toorop/1924' (lower right)
oil on canvas
69.5 x 61 cm.

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Collectie L. & L. Honsdrecht , June-December 1977, no. 191.

Piet Boendermaker, Bergen, No. 2317.
D. de Wolf Peereboom, Alkmaar.
Collectie L. & L. Honsdrecht, Amsterdam.
Sale Mak van waay, Amsterdam, October 1979, lot 629.

Christie’s charges a premium to the buyer on the Hammer Price of each lot sold at the following rates: 29.75% of the Hammer Price of each lot up to and including €5,000, plus 23.8% of the Hammer Price between €5,001 and €400,000, plus 14.28% of any amount in excess of €400,000. Buyer’s premium is calculated on the basis of each lot individually.
No other woman has had so much influence on Dutch culture in the first half of the Twentieth century as Charley Toorop. She had strong friendly relationships with A. Roland Holst, Henriëtte Roland Holst, Arthur Lehning, Marsman, Mondriaan, Van der Leck, Rädecker, Zadkine, to name just a few. She made contacts everywhere, and helped others to experience new influences. Her studio was a meeting point for many in the cultural world. But she was not only influential as the central figure in the cultural world, also as a painter she has left her traces. Her famous robust and direct brush is clearly visible in the lot on offer, A still life with roses in a glass vase from 1924.
As in all her subjects, and in the present lot again, Charley Toorop presents her still lifes with uncompromising directness. The very simplicity generates a strength infused with mystical connotations, but without making an explicit religious statement. Her objects transcend their everyday manifestations; they become concepts instead of randomly arranged objects. Her stark style, her large, sharply defined shapes and muted colours imbue her subjects with a certain stubbornness. Yet, the fact that these potent, vigorous pictures are the work of a woman, unwillingly changes the way we perceive them.
According to A.M. Hammacher, who knew the artist personally, Toorop's strength lay in her successful attempt to wrest Dutch art out of the sphere of intimacy, transforming objects and people into monumental phenomena.
And Brederoo states: "Choosing her subjects from real life, but considering each face and object as a mirror, Charley Toorop carries the lengthy observation in her work to the extreme. First she observes the real world from a materialistic standpoint, but then she translates it through her eyes and feeling. The material world always was her starting point, but it was never represented in a photographical manner, she reworked it to a specific image that she had in mind. (...) She transformed reality into a more fundamental reality" (Brederoo op.cit , p.196).