Details
Matthijs Maris (1839-1917)
Childhood Susan
oil on canvas laid down on panel
49.5 x 39.5 cm
painted in 1891
Provenance
Hamilton Bruce, London 1903.
A. Reid, Glasgow.
Cottier & Co, London.
Thos. Agnew & Sons, London 1908.
James G. Shephers.
A.H. Bouwens.
H. van Beek, Rotterdam.
A.L. van Beek, Rotterdam.
B. Meijer, Wassenaar Nr 376.
E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Naarden Nr 59693.
E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam Nr S 3241.
Exhibited
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, Matthijs Maris, October 1974, cat. no. 117. Laren, Singer Museum, Een kunstenaarsfamilie, Maris, 13 Jan - 10 March 1991.
Sale room notice
the correct description of the medium should read:
oil on paper laid down on canvas

Lot Essay

In 1869 Matthijs Maris went for Paris, searching the company and moral support of his elder brother Jacob, who preceded him in 1865.
Here he became acquainted with the Dutch dealer Elbert Jan van Wisselingh. In 1875 Van Wissselingh went to work for the Scottish dealer Daniel Cottier, who beacame fasainated by the art of Matthijs Maris. Two years later Cottier convinced Maris to move to London. Maris lived with him for two years, but his aversion to all that in the context of commerce finally drove them apart. His temporary move to a rented room marked the start of a monastic existence that lasted nineteen years. During this period he was financially dependent on Van Wisselingh, wich may have brought him to an icreased state of despair and isolation.
His productivity stagnated and occasionally ground to halt. It was an almost paranoid withdrawal from reality that left it almost impossible for Maris to finish his compositions, if he ever did.
The graceful beauties he used to paint, merged into shadows wreathed in mists of grey and brown, going over his few canvasses time and again, in the thinnest possible layers of paint.

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