Jan Toorop

Painted in 1886 (and not in 1888, as indicated on the painting), *Woman with a Parasol* is an early work by Jan Toorop, displaying the large dimensions characteristic of his early years. The artist, originally from the Dutch East Indies and moving between Brussels, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in the 1880s, was breaking away from what he had learnt at the academy. His experiments led him to explore a variety of modern movements of his time, from Pointillism to Linear Symbolism. This early work, *Lady with a Parasol*, still places him firmly within a ‘Belgian-style’ Impressionism also practised by Ensor, Vogels and Van Strydonck, who were close to Toorop – and all members of the Brussels avant-garde group Les XX. This is evident in the highly modern technique, resulting from the use of a palette knife to apply the paint in visible, expressive layers, and the pursuit of light effects. This focus, however, does not result in a sunny, iridescent effect, as seen in the work of the French Impressionists. If we compare Toorop’s Lady with a Parasol with the Women with Parasols painted at the same time by Monet, the overall effect remains relatively sombre. The lady seated outdoors – with a roughly sketched seashore in the background – is probably the Englishwoman Annie Hall, whom Toorop married in the year this painting was produced. Often depicted lost in thought, she posed regularly for him during those years, as did the rest of her in-laws. A tell-tale accessory of the prevailing Japonism, her parasol is placed in the foreground in a very modern manner, with its roughly sketched structure occupying a large section of the painting.  Toorop brings his composition to life with splashes of colour, from the red collar to the green ornament. However, for both the parasol and the dress, he uses only a monochrome palette of whites. Toorop may have observed this in the work of the artist Whistler in London, who had already explored white as a ‘symphony’ in paintings dominated by an isolated female figure.

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