Staphorster family.
Oil on board 75 x 58 cm.
Signed upper right: Jan Sluijters 1915
This painting is a preparatory study of the important work now in the collection of the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, there is also a similar work in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Sluijters mentioned in an intervieuw in 1916 this work as a melancholic expression of the daily poor farmers live in Staphorst, a conservative and pious village in the middle-east of the Netherlands.
The dark tonality of the paintings from this period (1915-1918) is an utterance of the attitude to life of the population. The study is made directly on the spot of the farm.
This painting is a nice example of a short but very important period of the painter.
Provenance:
Jan Sluijters, Amsterdam
Exposition:
"Laren, Bergen,Amsterdam", kunsthandel Douwes, Amsterdam, may-june 1974, nr. 21 with ill.
"Jan Sluijters, 1881-1957, Watercolors and drawings, Noord-Brabants Museum 's-Hertogenbosch, 8-VI/26-VIII 1991. Litterature:
Elsevier's Geill. Maandtijdschrift jrg. 26, dl 51, 1916, 245-247.
Hopmans A., Jan Sluijters 1881-1957, exposition catalogue Zwolle and s-Hertogenbosch. nr. 100 with ill. Description: pages 150-151.
