Oil painting entitled 'Head of a young girl' by Cecil van Haanen (1844-1914). Dutch School, ca. 1870s.

Head of a dark-haired, brown-eyed girl looking towards the spectator. She wears a pinkish hat tied under the chin with red ribbons and on her shoulders a white garment.

Bequeathed by Henry L. Florence

Bequeathed by Henry L. Florence, 1916

Historical significance: The present portrait is typical of van Haanen's style, with its broken brushwork and brownish red palette, to which are added touches of pure black, white, and light yellow.

A pair of portraits of young girls, painted in similar tones in a slightly neater style, from the collection of the Countess Anna Mueller Grocholski, were sold at Sotheby's Amsterdam, 1st Nov 2005, lot 1487. One of the sitters is very close to that in the present work, and may be the same model.

Cecil van Haanen ((1844-after 1873) was born in Vienna, son of the Dutch painter Remigius van Haanen (1812-1894), who was based in Vienna as from 1836. He trained with his father and Joseph Henri François van Lerius (1823-1876) in Antwerp and at the Academy in Karlsruhe in 1863-64. In 1873 he travelled to Venice, and subsequently lived in England and Vienna. His date of death remains unknown.

He painted mainly Venetian genre scenes in the manner of Ludwig Passini (1832-1903), a painter from Vienna, who settled in Venice the same year as van Haanen. He specialised in genre scenes of Venetian country life, with group or individual portraits of young women, of considerable naturalness and spontaneity. His work is generally similar to that of English painters of Venetian subjects, like Luke Fildes and Henry Woods.

The great tradition of the Golden Age constituted a real burden for Dutch painters in the 19th century. Many continued to paint in the style of the masters of the 17th century, but a more direct approach to nature emerged in the work of Andreas Schelfhout, Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove (1790-1880) and his son, Hubertus van Hove (1819-1865). The arrival of the Barbizon school gave new life to a tradition that had been stagnating. Hendrik Mesdag (1831-1915), Anton Mauve (1838-1888), Jozef Israëls (1824-1911) and Jacob Maris (1837-1899) were the nucleus of the Hague School, founded in the 1870s. Their subdued colour and sketchy technique puzzled contemporary art critics who then nicknamed this new movement as the 'grey school'. 19th-century Dutch paintings wee popular with British collectors, including James Staats Forbes (1823-1904), Alexander Young and Sir John Charles Frederic Sigismund Day (1826-1908).

Cecil van Haanen ((1844-after 1873) was a Dutch painter born in Vienna, son of the painter Remigius van Haanen (1812-1894) who based himself in Vienna from 1836. He trained with his father and Joseph Henri François van Lerius (1823-1876) in Antwerp and at the Academy in Karlsruhe in 1863-64. In 1873 he went to Venice and subsequently lived in England and Vienna, his date of death remains unknown.

This painting is a good example of Cecil van Haanen's oeuvre. He specialised in genre scenes, representing essentially Venetian country life with many collective or single portraits of young Venetian woman whose naturalness and spontaneity were the artist's point of interest.

P.26-1917