Compositie (Haventje met gemeerde botters)

In 1911 the Dutch Parisian artist Lodewijk Schelfhout, a good friend of Piet Mondriaan, contributed several cubist paintings to the exhibition of the artist society 'De Moderne Kunstkring' in Amsterdam. Like many of her Dutch contemporaries, these works must have made a great impression on Jacoba van Heemskerck. From this point her work shows strong cubist style marks. Although cubism was only popular in The Netherlands for a few years, it played an important role in determining the direction to which modern art in Holland was going.

Van Heemskerck’ cubist period was shortlived and even though the works show similarities with the works of Mondriaan and Schelfhout, Van Heemskerck clearly developed her own style. The present lot can be seen as the culmination of this development.