Young Breton woman in a landscape or Marie-Louise in Huelgoat

After studying at the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts, Verkade arrived in Paris in 1891, where he was welcomed by his compatriot Meijer de Haan. De Haan introduced him to Gauguin and then to Sérusier, who invited him to join the Nabis group: he was then nicknamed "the Obelisk Nabi." This drawing was made in the spring of 1891 during his stay in Brittany, in Huelgoat, in the company of Sérusier and the Danish painter Mogens Ballin. Verkade demonstrates a radical Synthetism reminiscent of Seguin or O'Conor. Sérusier even wrote about him: "Jan has made enormous progress in drawing and spiritualism. His portraits of peasant women are becoming Madonnas." In February 1894, Ballin invited Verkade to exhibit in Copenhagen, in a space on Bredsgade. The exhibition features works with Breton motifs, including what is likely this drawing under the title Marie-Louise, purchased by Ballin himself.