Lot 158: Jacobus van Looy (Dutch, 1855-1930)

Café Marseille
inscribed with title (lower centre) and dated '02' (lower left)
pencil on paper
12 x 9.5 cm.
and Eight other works on paper depicting various subjects by the same hand, one framed. (9)

Acquired from the artist by his parents-in-law, Mr and Mrs van
Gelder-Endtz.
A gift to their daughter Mrs H.J.C. Verkade-van Gelder (on loan to the Huis van Looy between 1934-1948/49), thence by descent to the present owner.

A COLLECTION OF WORKS ACQUIRED DIRECTLY FROM JACOBUS VAN LOOY (LOTS 158-161)

Van Looy painted the present so-called 'cut-out' paintings 'Clematis' (Lot 159), 'Pears' (Lot 160) and 'Apples' (Lot 161) after he had moved to his second house in Haarlem in 1913. From about 1890 until his death in 1930, the painter and writer Jacobus van Looy produced a series of fascinating close-ups of flower gardens, individual flowers and boughs of fruit. Most of them were painted in the garden of the house of the artist and his wife Titia van Gelder in his native town of Haarlem on the Kleine Houtweg. The house and studio were built to their specifications. In the garden Titia grew a large variety of plants whose flowers and fruit Van Looy painted, often en plein air. They generally kept these works to adorn their own interior. Not only were the fruits in his garden a recurring source of inspiration for his paintings, but he also wrote poems about the pears and apples in his garden.

In the following lots Van Looy choose to zoom in on a small area, focussing on the fruits or the colourful purple Clematis. Also characteristic of these paintings are the abrupt cut-offs, a technique with which various artists, influenced by the advent of photography, experimented in the late nineteenth century. He wrote the following about his studies of fruit and flowers: 'Maar peren zijn er om geschilderd te worden, ik hunker naar wat zon en om mijn ezeltje weer eens buiten te zetten. Wat op bevredigende wijze dus met verf raakte beschreven, dient tot verlevendiging van onze vertrekken, dus ook van het vertrek waarbinnen mijn schrijftafel tabernakelt. Bij minder gunstige dagen zijn schilderingen van vruchten en bloemen een opbeurend bezit' (see: Joyce van der Smit-Meijer a.o., Jacobus van Looy 1855-1930: niets is zoo mooi als zien..., Haarlem 1998, p. 138.).

Jacobus van Looy had studied under the renowned August Allebé at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam, where he belonged to the circle of the Eighties movement (Tachtigers). In 1884 he won the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to study abroad for two years. Whereas previously his work had been somewhat academic, on his return to Amsterdam, he gradually developed a more impressionist and altogether personal style. At the same time he also emerged as a writer whose work was characterised by fantasy and impressionism.

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