Deaf, Dumb and Brilliant
Subtitle: Johan Thopas, Master Draughtsman
Publisher: Holberton Publishing, Paul
Published: 2014
Language: eng; dut; ger
Number of pages: 200
ISBN-13: 9781907372674
Subjects: Drawing, dutch; Drawing, exhibitions
Description: Until recently, the Dutch draughtsman Johannes Thopas, who was born deaf in 1626, was only known to a small group of connoisseurs, dealers and collectors. However, his remarkable, subtle and technically refined portrait drawings on parchment deserve a wider audience. This handsome publication, the first devoted to his work, will prove to be an eye opener for many art lovers. Beginning with his earliest works (two beautiful miniatures of 1646 in the Fundation Custodia in Paris), Thopas produced incredibly refined drawings, usually with lead point on parchment. Apart from lead-point drawings, Thopas made several drawings in colour, on parchment and on Japanese paper. In most cases these drawings were done after life. Furthermore, he produced at least one brilliant copy after a painting by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Venus, Mars and Cupid, and even a painting, portraying a dead child. He must have made more paintings and certainly more drawings than the seventy we know today (all of which are catalogued and illustrated here). In this exhibition his only known painting and the one mythological drawing are shown and accompanied by thirty of his most beautiful portraits, from private collections in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as museums, such as the Albertina in Vienna, the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, the Städel in Frankfurt and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.