ISAAC ISRAELS | THE DRUMMER

Jan Michiel Pieter Glerum, Amsterdam 

Sale: Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 2 May 1933, lot 62

Boesaart van Roosmalen (purchased at the above sale)

Sale: Sotheby's, Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 19 November 1976, lot 906

Private collection, The Netherlands

Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 2010

The present work comes closest to two others by Isaac Israels in important Dutch public collections: Trommelslaagster in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (147 by 90cm, and dated circa 1903-14), and Trommelaarster in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (100 by 65cm, dated circa 1890-1910). While all three appear to depict the same North African woman dressed in the same loose-fitting attire, captured mid-performance before an unseen audience, of the three this work is executed on the largest format. The setting for this work is also slightly different, without the poster of wrestlers seen on the wall in the other two, the composition framed by a stage along the lower edge and doorway to the right. Its execution is particularly fluent and free, the gold highlights in the woman's blouse creating an abstracted pattern of brushstrokes. Although undated, the artist's use of a Paris canvas for the present work points to it being painted during his stay in the city from 1904 on.

The son of the Dutch naturalist painter Jozef Israels, in 1887 Israels moved to Amsterdam where he became a member of the Tachtigers, a group of progressive artists and writers. In 1903 he left for Paris where he took on an atelier on the Boulevard de Clichy. The cafés, cabarets and the elegant world of haute couture offered up a wealth of subjects for the young arriviste. He gained access to exclusive fashion houses such as Paquin and Drecoll where he observed the wealthy clientele and the work of the seamstresses and the milliners, and became a regular visitor to the Moulin Rouge, the Moulin de la Galette, and to fashionable restaurants such as Le Perroquet. Whether in Amsterdam, The Hague, Paris, London or Java, throughout his career Isaac Israels was keenly interested in capturing the performance of music and dance.