Jan Toorop artwork • watercolour • drawing • previously for sale Young woman reading prose ('Vrouwenrecht')
Jan Toorop
Poerworedjo (Indonesië, v/h Nederlands-Indië) 1858-1928 Den Haag
1858-1928
Young woman reading prose ('Vrouwenrecht')
pencil and chalk on paper 16.2 x 20.5 cm, signed l.r. and dated 1897
This work on paper was previously for sale.
After 1894 Jan Toorop was mainly concerned with the ideals of a better world. At that time he received many commissions for posters and bindings; in 1898 for the design of a poster for the National Exhibition of Women's Labor. The aim of the event in The Hague was to positively influence public opinion on women's work, to broaden their employment opportunities and to gain recognition for women's work. The following year, Toorop portrayed Marie de Lange as chair of the Association for the Improvement of Women's Clothing. This aimed for women to wear clothes in which they could 'walk, sit and work; that we can dress and undress without outside help, that we can carry our handkerchiefs, our purse, our keys with us, that our dresses do not sweep the floor, that our hats fit on our heads (...)'. The fact that Toorop often selflessly contributed to this type of posters and the way in which he related to women in his friendships and his works of art testify to his sympathy for women's emancipation. In 1897, the first of many summers Toorop would spend in Domburg, it already had his interest. He drew this young feminist there, engrossed in a book about 'Women's rights'.