Willem Bastiaan Tholen (1860-1931) - Het avondmaal

Very fine study by Tholen. Signed and dated 1888 at the bottom right.

Provenance:

Sotheby Amsterdam, auction house, ca. 2000 (inventory number written in chalk on the reverse)
Private Dutch collection.
Comparable work (from the same year) sold at Christie's and Sotheby’s; see the last images.

Tholen was born in 1860 in Amsterdam, as the son of the painter, and later art dealer, Pieter Hendrik Hermanus Tholen and Johanna Maria Arendsen. He grew up in Kampen in an artistic milieu. Tholen studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, where he earned the M.O. certificate in drawing, and at the Polytechnic School in Delft, where he earned the M.O. certificate in straight-line drawing. He was taught by, among others, Paul Joseph Constantin Gabriël. In Delft Tholen studied under Adolf le Comte.

Tholen settled after his training as a drawing teacher in Gouda and later in Kampen. He lived and worked in several places in the Netherlands. Nature formed Tholen’s greatest source of inspiration.

Tholen married Jacoba Suzanna Muller in 1886, who died in 1918. He remarried in 1919 to Lita de Ranitz. He lived and worked in The Hague at the so-called Kanaalvilla. He was a member of the artists’ society Pulchri Studio in The Hague. He died in December 1931, aged 71, in his residence in The Hague. He was buried at the Nieuwe Begraafplaats on the Soerenseweg in Apeldoorn, in his father’s grave.

His work was awarded the 'gold medal' in 1903, provided by Queen Mother Emma.

Carefully packed and sent by registered mail.