MIES ELOUT-DRABBE 

1875 Utrecht – 1956 Ellecom

A DOMBURG GIRL IN COSTUME

pencil on paper, 30⅛ x 25 inches (76.5 x 63.5 cm.)

signed, inscribed & dated: M. Elout-Drabbe / Domburg Dec 1909.

date: 1909

provenance:

Dr. Constant Orbaan (1890-1953), Middelburg;

Ina Johanna Constantine Orbaan (1927-2022), inherited from the above;

private collection, gift from the above, the Netherlands;

Vendu, Rotterdam, 11 November 2024, lot 334.

exhibited:

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, 19deJaarlijksche Tentoonstelling van Kunstwerken der Vereeniging St. Lucas, 11 April – 16 May 1909, no. 146.

literature:

Francisca van Vloten, Moen. Tussen Toorop en Mondriaan. De kunstenares Mies Elout-Drabbe 1875-1956, Vlissingen 2004, p. 41, ill., fn. 102, p. 145

A young girl wearing traditional Domburg costume stands in an interior, her hands gently folded, flanked by a prominently rendered chrysanthemum that rises to the same height as she does. Her traditional lace Zeeland cap and spiral-shaped ornaments signal wealth and social status.

Around 1900, Zeeland was predominantly Protestant, shaped by Reformed and Calvinist traditions that emphasized modesty, restraint, and simplicity in daily life. At the same time, details such as finely worked lace and gold ornaments subtly conveyed prosperity. Together, these elements reflect a community that was materially well-off, yet expressed affluence in an understated and socially coded manner.

Although Elout-Drabbe demonstrates her remarkable skill in the rendering of textiles, A Domburg Girl in Costume is more than a beautiful and realistic portrait. The Zeeland people and Domburg community emerged as an artistic refuge, where the rural landscape and people were seen as a counterpart to modern urban society and as a site of introspection.The girl conveys a serene, inward-looking presence and appears absorbed in her own thoughts, detached from her immediate surroundings. Through the window, a wooded landscape with a gently flowing stream is visible; its calm movement reinforces an atmosphere of stillness and contemplation, echoing the meditative mood of the figure. Set against this background the girl personifies all the positive qualities associated with people living in the country at the time: purity, honesty and simplicity.

Another striking detail is the large chrysanthemum positioned beside the girl. Flowers are imbued with different meanings throughout the history of art and particularly so around the turn of the nineteenth century. Elout-Drabbe engaged with theosophy, like many other artists working in and around Domburg at the time. Within theosophical theory, the flower is a symbol of spiritual development, representing the progression from latent awareness to higher consciousness. At the same time, it expresses the unity of matter and spirit: rooted in the earthly realm while oriented toward light, the flower embodies the inseparable connection between the material and the spiritual. Reading the present drawing of a young girl besides a blooming chrysanthemum in this light shows the artist’s sensitivity in combining certain motifs in a way that sends a strong message, in this case the potential of spiritual development.

The year 1909, when A Domburg Girl in Costume was drawn, marks a key moment in Elout-Drabbe’s career. She lived and worked in the coastal town of Domburg in Zeeland, which—partly through her contributions—developed into a seasonal artists’ colony and a significant center for the Dutch avant-garde. In 1907, the artist had a studio built at her home, providing her with a permanent place to work. The following year, she held her first solo exhibition in Domburg, where her work was well received and sold successfully. Jan Toorop publicly praised the exhibition in the local newspaper, writing: “Congratulations, Mies Elout-Drabbe. Always strive toward the higher beauty. You have now unlocked the gates.” This recognition underscores both her artistic maturity at this moment and the esteem in which she was held by leading figures of her time.

Elout-Drabbe was both a muse and a protégé of Toorop who belonged to the elite circle of international avant-garde artists at the time. Stylistically and compositionally, A Domburg Girl in Costume is closely related to Toorop’s graphic work. More specifically, the placement of the girl in front of the window appears to have drawn inspiration from Toorop as it creates a particular sense of space with the window serving as mediator between the inside and the outside world—a device Toorop employed in comparable works like Godsvertrouwen (fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Jan Toorop, Godsvertrouwen, 1907, mixed media on paper, 579 x 435 mm, private collection. Fig. 2 Jan Toorop, Zelfportret met Mies Drabbe, 1898 mixed media on paper, 10 x 12 cm, a drawing included in a letter to Elout-Drabbe dated May 20th 1898, Royal Library Collection, The Hague.

Upon Elout-Drabbe’s invitation, Jan Toorop first visited Domburg in 1898. The following year, he stayed with the Drabbe family upon the invitation of her father, a close friend of Toorop. He was so taken with Domburg—its coastal landscape and local population—that from then on he returned almost every year, mainly in the summer, to live and work there for several weeks or months. Toorop’s presence attracted other ambitious artists to Domburg who wished to work in his vicinity, leading to the emergence of an artists’ colony focused on artistic renewal and modern art. Piet Mondrian was among them, achieving an important artistic breakthrough in Domburg as he moved away from the naturalistic character of his earlier work. As a locally rooted artist permanently based in Domburg, Elout-Drabbe played a central role within this community. Together with Toorop and with the support of others, she organized the annual summer exhibitions from 1911 onward. Held in a small, purpose-built wooden pavilion on the beach, these exhibitions exclusively presented works by artists who were actively working in Domburg, reinforcing the town’s position as a vital artistic center and underscoring Elout-Drabbe’s significance not only as an artist but also as a key facilitator within this network.

Mies Elout-Drabbe drawing at her easel around 1900. 

Mies Elout-Drabbe (Marie Jeanette Sophie Drabbe, 1875–1956) was a Dutch artist whose work and activities place her at the heart of a crucial transitional moment in early twentieth-century art. Born in Utrecht, she was encouraged at an early stage by Jan Toorop—who also wrote a letter of recommendation for her—to pursue formal artistic training. From 1899 to 1901 she studied at the Drawing Academy in The Hague. In 1902 she married Paulus Johannes Elout van Soeterwoude, with whom she had two children, and subsequently settled in the coastal town of Domburg. There, she developed an artistic practice in which close observation of nature was combined with spiritual and symbolic concerns rooted in fin-de-siècle thought. Influenced by luminism, pointillism, and symbolism, and inspired by theosophy and related spiritual movements, her work sought to give visual form to unseen, inner realities. Although she did not pursue abstraction as radically as some of her contemporaries, her oeuvre exemplifies an important intermediate phase between late nineteenth-century symbolism and the emergence of modernist art.